Project background

      In the fall of 2011, researchers in the Department of Geography at NMSU collaborated with staff at the City of Las Cruces and Doña Ana County on a successful grant proposal to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program. The intent of the grant was to advance regional planning within the Camino Real Corridor in Doña Ana County under HUD’s livability principles, and the Viva Dona Ana Regional Planning Project was the effort that the project partners have worked to advance. To provide leadership for the project, the Camino Real Consortium and Regional Leadership Committee were formed, with the following members :

               •     Doña Ana County
               •     City of Las Cruces
               •     New Mexico State University
               •     South Central Council of Governments
               •     Las Cruces Metropolitan Planning Organization
               •     Mesilla Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization
               •     South Central Regional Transit District
               •     Colonias Development Council
               •     Tierra del Sol Housing Corporation
               •     Town of Mesilla
               •     City of Sunland Park
               •     La Semilla Food Center

      In the fall of 2012, The Spatial Applications Research Center (SpARC) in the NMSU Department of Geography was granted a contract to provide geographic information science and technology (GIS&T) support to the project. In May of 2014, the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico and the Ocotillo Institute for Social Justice supplemented this contract with funds to support the work to map the economic landscape of Doña Ana County described below. The deliverables that we have produced under these contracts are described below.

•     Develop a regional GIS&T Users Group to facilitate discussions towards collaboration and cooperation on regional GIS&T issues of interest to the project and to help advance discussions on data sharing and joint data acquisition. Details of the Users Group are provided under the Project Partners link under construction.

•     Build a regional GIS&T Data Portal that would provide Web-based access to data sets of interest to project staff and to facilitate data sharing among members of the GIS&T Users Group. Access to the portal is provided by this link.

•     Maps of the landscape of businesses in Doña Ana County through the development of The Doña Ana County Business Atlas. To download the PDF version, please click on the fourth icon on the upper-right corner inside the viewer (Viewer).