Augusta, GA is becoming a huge city. I was shock as a native atlantan. Perfect time to get out of ATL (Columbus: credit)

[StaceyWll]

I used to live in Augusta and try to keep up with the developments downtown. I applaud the efforts and hope they make their goal of coming close to the success Greenville SC has had. Greenville truly took large steps to CLEAN UP their downtown 20 years ago and today it is really nice. It pretty much is the perfect small-midsized downtown area. Full of restaurants, a few theatres, river park, and most of all things are clean and modern while retaining the older buildings charm.

I live in downtown Atlanta now and it has a lot of problems too in the downtown area vs. the Midtown area. Downtown Atlanta has made some progress the last 7 years but it struggles with aggressive panhandlers, and keeping restaurants and office buildings filled. It has a long way to recovering to a healthy and safe place to be at night.

I do hope the people in charge of downtown Augusta keep the momentum and make those sometimes harsh changes that need to be made to make it nicer, cleaner and safer(at night). While keeping it interesting, unique, and diverse. Yes I believe strip clubs can co-exist with nice restaurants and bars. As long as everyone (even the well-dressed professionals) behave themselves then things can succeed.

I plan on making a visit in the coming weeks to get a feel for how they are going.

Reason: Atlanta is not as great as everyone says. Their subway train system is pathetic and goes nowhere people need to go 30 years after it was created. They refuse to expand it intown and out to the suburbs to ease traffic. A town this size should have expanded it years ago YET they only do studies about adding street cars or trams to add to intown options BUT they never act on anything. It's very disappointing and I see myself moving soon.

Traffic here is awful and mind blowing if you have to commute on I-85 or I-285 on a daily basis. Traffic is choking Atlanta. Atlanta has demolished most of it's nicer older buildings that had character in the drive to have a skyline. Yet at night there isn't much at the bottom of those tall buildings.

When people say, "We need to be like Atlanta", I cringe. Atlanta has a ton of problems like most larger towns.

Good luck Augusta.

[mattdog]

Tee center, Multi-use baseball facility, Judicial center,

kroc center, watermark condos, sibley mill, white's building,

10th street project, library, james brown townhomes,

new hotel with 60 residential areas and 10,000 sq. ft of retail

Some of the projects going on in downtown augusta in a 1 mile radius

[miranova]

First of all, perhaps you missed it poptart and brentyoung (or whoever) but I started with "In my opinion"...second of all that IS what I was told by a police officer who worked for several local counties as a for many years (including Richmond - downtown). He had to quit because the drug enforcement was so corrupt they were being investigated and he was afraid to even go to work. He's a good honest guy, very kind hearted, and sadly is no longer a police officer because of the area.

Augusta is very racially and economically divided, culturally deprived, and has a horrible crime rate for the size it is. Is that better for me to say than compare it to Atlanta?

Also, my stating the fact my car has been broken into twice downtown and knowing several friends who have been mugged is my experience with crime in Augusta (besides hearing about drugs and murders from cops). So, in expressing my opinions, of course my personal experiences would be relevant.

I would be very interested to see actual crime rates...I had trouble finding something recent with rates to compare both. I did find this that at Forbes.com Best Places For Business And Careers - Forbes.com
Although it's ranking of metro cities is geared toward business and careers, it also ranks education, cost of living, crime rate, etc (click on each city to see the specifics). It ranks:

Atlanta as #6 overall - 111 for crime rate - 51 in culture & leisure - 69 job growth


Savannah as #90 overall - 136 crime rate - 118 culture & leisure - 18 job growth


Columbus as #127 overall - 190 crime rate - 175 culture & leisure - 146 job growth


Augusta as #158 overall - 148 crime rate ( I think it's like golf, btw, the higher number is worse than the lower of ATL & SAV) - 180 in culture & leisure (not surprising to me) - 128 job growth


Of course, that's just Forbes take on it...I'm sure they don't know what they are talking about! The only things that saved Augusta from being even lower in the ranks on this list were costs of businesses (my guess is because they don't pay well?) and cost of living. In summary, Augusta was ranked worse than all three cities for culture & leisure, worse than Atlanta and Savannah for crime, and way worse than Atlanta and Savannah for job growth. Worst overall of all these Georgia cities, of course too. I would assume Forbes would take into account population when factoring all of this information, although I'm not sure of their exact methodology. I also didn't spend a bunch of time looking for any other Georgia cities for comparison, because I frankly do not care that much.

Again, these are all of my opinions about the city (besides the Forbes opinions I referenced), which is what this board is for no?

I'm glad some people like Augusta...I guess I'm just not one of them, and I'm not shy to say so.

And thanks for expanding the conversation with some intelligence, Disgusta!

[mattdog]

First of all this is whats on the article you provided.
Rank
Metro Area Cost Of Doing Business (Rank) 1
Job Growth (Rank) 2
Educational Attainment (Rank)3
1 2 3
Atlanta GA114 69 34
Savannah GA83 18 121
Columbus GA47 146 162
Augusta GA55 128 147

It says nothing about culutre and leisure or crime. Where do you get your statistics about crime, and culture. How can you provide a article and then make stuff up at the same time. The article you provided says nothing about crime or leisure and culture. But yet you respond with this long post with false statements. Waste of post on a thread.

[miranova]

Originally Posted by mattdog

First of all this is whats on the article you provided.
Rank
Metro Area Cost Of Doing Business (Rank) 1
Job Growth (Rank) 2
Educational Attainment (Rank)3
1 2 3
Atlanta GA114 69 34
Savannah GA83 18 121
Columbus GA47 146 162
Augusta GA55 128 147

It says nothing about culutre and leisure or crime. Where do you get your statistics about crime, and culture. How can you provide a article and then make stuff up at the same time. The article you provided says nothing about crime or leisure and culture. But yet you respond with this long post with false statements. Waste of post on a thread.

First of all...
um, like I said...you have to clicky the linky for each city....to see the other categories.

talk about wasting posts... oh, Augusta ranked 147 in "educational attainment". You guys are really in to defending good ole' Augusta huh? geez...

[PJA]

I posted these before, but these are the crime statistics for each metro area from the FBI site.

The Crime rate in Georgia by MSA . This information was taken from the FBI website and represents 2005 the latest year for their results.

Violent Crime

1. Augusta 392.3 (safest)

2. Columbus 422.1

3. Atlanta 492

4. Macon 501.6

5. Savannah 582.9 (most unsafe)



Property Crimes

1. Atlanta 4115.2 (safest)

2. Augusta 4518.5

3. Savannah 4737.7

4. Columbus 5468.6

5. Macon 6180.7 (most unsafe)

[PJA]

Trust me Disgusta, you can get a good education at any school in Richmond County. I graduated from Glenn Hills High School in 2000, number 12 in my class. I made a perfect score on my Graduating Writing Test and very high on the others. I made 1280 on my SAT. I got my bachelors degree in 2004 at Augusta State. I am currently working on my Masters degree at Georgia State. If you go to school to get an education, you will get one.

[DisgustaTruth]

I beg to differ that you can get a good education at any school. The good teachers do not stay in Richmond County schools.. pay is lower than other systems... the school administration is chronically dysfunctional...they have to spend more time dealing with disruptive and violent students than actually teach. Promotions and pay depend on cronyism rather than merit. Teacher morale at Richmond County schools is extremely low (i've had several relatives teach in the system.. and they got out as soon as they could for the the reasons I mentioned.) Go to the Augusta Chronicle website and do a simple search and you will find dozens of articles detailing the poor conditions at richmond county schools and the low morale of teachers.
A student who steps foot in a Richmond Country school is at a clear disadvantage.. it's pretty hard to get an education when you have a bomb threat closing down school every other day, teachers being attacked by unruly and violent students, and swat teams being called out to subdue near riots at local high schools.

[DisgustaTruth]

Miranova... the reason you are having a hard time finding crime stats for Augusta is because it is one of the few cities that doesn't release reliable numbers. Several newspapers have criticised the city for this practice. The forbes stats are the most accurate I have seen.. they compile a wide range of data. I know personal incidents are purely anecdotal.. but having lived in Augusta and Atlanta.. I only had my car broken into three times, house robbed once, and mugged in downtown while living in Augusta.. but never in Atlanta... maybe I was just lucky.

[matrixguy]

The teachers in richmond county alot of the time make more than columbia, aiken, burke, mcduffie, or any other county. I should know my sister teaches at richmond academy in augusta. We know you don't like augusta but your biased makes you exaggerate. I went to richmond academy and went on to georgia state university.

And about the comment any kid who steps foot in a richmond county school is at a clear disadvantage. Why is this then.

Davidson, and AR johnson are two of the top 5 schools in georgia. And both are located in richmond county augusta. Both of these schools consistenly outperform upper middle class suburban schools outside atlanta. How do these schools in richmond county outperfom schools where students parents are making over 100,000 dollars a year outside atlanta. These students are at a clear disadvantage remember and still are on top. Davidson is the top school in georgia even with all the money in atlanta. And I know you have seen some of the houses in gwinnet before. Richmond academy has the IB program which is one of the best in the nation.