all villages in the watershed, and the infrastructure that connects them. The studio proposed measures that could be implemented in Taoping alone, but ideally these measures would serve as a model for development in other villages as well. To maximize the regional effectiveness of the Taoping model, studio members Ching Chan and Cecelia Gunn proposed a set of development strategies for the Zagunao Valley. In order to minimize environmental impacts of construction, the main highway through the valley would remain in its current alignment, across the Zagunao River from Taoping. Transportation would be improved by managing existing road use, giving priority to public transit and commercial traffic and restricting private passenger vehicles, rather than by increasing the number and width of highways. A regional system of signs, maps, guides, and other marketing tools would help to promote the particular and diverse tourist attractions of multiple village destinations in the valley, to appeal to different types of tourists, rather than leave each village to try to be all things to all tourists.
New governance structures that make use of existing and traditionally meaningful community relationships (like clan or surname groups), and that guarantee equitable opportunities and outcomes for all community members, should help to reverse the current trend of social fragmentation, decrease competition between households, and increase collective decision-making capacity. To this end, Ching Chan proposed village-wide cooperatives to manage different aspects of tourist development. These co-ops would be governed by revolving committees of representatives from different surname groups, as identified by the summer surveys of housing and land ownership.
Actual implementation of these ideas would depend on much greater input and participation by the residents of Taoping and other community stakeholders than the studio could orchestrate in 2009. Nevertheless, by telling and illustrating a story that shows how innovative physical, economic, ecological and social initiatives can be integrated in a sustainable recovery process, the studio has laid a foundation for further discussion and alternative action. We hope that Taoping and other Qiang and Tibetan villages in the Min River watershed may find them useful, and that there will be time for community-based action to follow.
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UW TAOPING DESIGN STUDIO
