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

[matrixguy]

Originally Posted by miranova

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...

Educational attainment.
Atlanta 34
Savannah 121
Augusta 147
Columbus 162
athens and macon didn't make the list. And this probably has nothing to do with how the great the education is. Its probably more focus on the number of colleges and schools to pick from in a city.

[DisgustaTruth]

Most recent crime stats for 6 largest metro areas in Georgia:

Athens, Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, Savannah
crime rates are per 100,000 residents based on entire metro population (where data available)

Overall, the Athens, GA area was the safest metro area in Georgia. It scored the lowest on overall violent crime. lowest murder rate.lowest robbery rate.lowest auto theft rate
Savannah metro had the highest murder rate at 9.9 per 100,000 ppl
In most of the categories.. Metro Augusta ranked in the middle... except one: Forcible rape. Metro Augusta had the highest forcible rape stats of anty metro in Georgia at 42.3 per 100,000 ppl
A person is twice as likely to be forcibly raped in metro Augusta than metro Atlanta, which had a a score of 21.6 per 100,000.
After Augusta..Macon scored second worse for rape, followed by Athens (usually college towns rank high on this stat),then Savannah, then Atlanta, and Columbus had the lowest score on forcible rape.
But you see variations among the metro areas in different stats. In one metro area.. you may be at greater risk of having your car stolen, but lower risk of being raped. The FBI warns against making general rankings of cities and metro areas on the crime stats.. because there are so many variables.. So the best thing to do is look at the individual crime categories.. whcih type of crime are yopu most concerned about? For a parent sending their young daughter away for college, rape may be at the top of the list. For someone who is a fanatic about their car, trhen auto theft may be the most important statistic to them.
Here is a link to the table of Crime stats by metro area from the FBI. It's a bit tedious to read.. you have to scroll down alphabetically to find the metro areas you are interested in researching.
Table 6 - Crime in the United States 2006

[miranova]

Originally Posted by 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)

I found this, that used the FBI data, I didn't see Augusta on the list and they said some cities don't report it so they are not on there...do you have a link for where you got your information?

Here's the one I was looking at: Ranking of least, most dangerous cities - USATODAY.com

What exactly does MSA stand for? All I found was Muslim Student Association...I figure that's not it..

My parents were both teachers in Richmond county, then both moved to Aiken County. I think they made more in Aiken and it also depended a lot on years of teaching experience. Both places, my mom made more than my dad because she had ten years of teaching before he started. Of course teachers salaries do vary - I always thought it was more of a variation between states though. Not saying I'm right...just what I thought

[DisgustaTruth]

My sister taught special ed in richmond county for 4 years.. she got fed up with the lower pay, lack of resources and support from administration and the voilent students. It got to a point where she feared for her life going to work everyday.. and the pay just wasn't enough to tolerate the poor working conditions. She transferred to Columbia County and now makes more money , has more resources and support from administration and has far fewer disciplinary problems to deal with.
BTW.. MSA is short for metropolitan statistical area..
The FBI website explicitly says that using the uniform crime data to compile overall rankings of cities is not recommended and will yield statistically flawed results because of the numerous variables that are not factored in. You need to see how much of the crime is committed against strangers..how much is drug related.. how random is the crime? Usually college towns have very high rates of property crime.. but that doesn't mean they are more dangerous places to be.. it just means that when you have a place with a lot of college students.. you tend to get more incidents of things like stolen bookbags and bicycles. So you have top contextualize all of the statistics.. and that is very ghard to do.

[miranova]

Originally Posted by matrixguy

Educational attainment.
Atlanta 34
Savannah 121
Augusta 147
Columbus 162
athens and macon didn't make the list. And this probably has nothing to do with how the great the education is. Its probably more focus on the number of colleges and schools to pick from in a city.

It states at the bottom that "educational attainment" is the "6Share of Population over age 25 with a bachelor's degree or higher." So, it doesn't necessarily reflect people who were only educated in Augusta or the school system specifically. More like the intellectual atmosphere in the city presently (not sure how many were educated here, I would imagine a majority though).

The "colleges" category is a "Measure of 4-year colleges in area with extra credit for highly rated schools."

To me, arguing about which schools are decent (if that) in the state that consistently ranks last or second or third (or whatever) to last in the nation is really a silly thing to do. Who has kids in these school systems?

I think another friend - a violent crime investigator in RC had mentioned a high rate of "unsolved" murders in Augusta, I don't remember specifics as far as the state- just his point was that it was pretty bad...but that's just another worm in the can i didn't intend to open!

Also, there are some good places (in my opinion) in downtown and in Columbia County. Mostly, these are cafes/ bars. There are also some people I am friends with who have worked vehemently to improve downtown (against the forces of the local government). I have a great deal of respect for some of the downtown business owners who are trying to improve the situation. They have a long fight, I'm afraid. The potential is there, but just refer back to my first post as to how I still think Augusta is currently

[PJA]

I had several good teachers in Richmond County. Not all of the good teachers leave nor do they all have problems.

To miranova, no they don't report their crime statistics to say a journalistic source, but the FBI automatically has the numbers.

[PJA]

Here's the link. It has the violent crime rate and then the violent crime rate broken down into categories and the property crime rate, with the property crime rate broken down into several categories.

Crime in the United States 2006

The numbers may be slightly off as I think I posted 2005 numbers since that was what was availbable at the time. But the rankings are still the same.

[PJA]

Miranova, msa stands for metropolitan statistical area.

[PJA]

Originally Posted by DisgustaSucks

My sister taught special ed in richmond county for 4 years.. she got fed up with the lower pay, lack of resources and support from administration and the voilent students. It got to a point where she feared for her life going to work everyday.. and the pay just wasn't enough to tolerate the poor working conditions. She transferred to Columbia County and now makes more money , has more resources and support from administration and has far fewer disciplinary problems to deal with.
BTW.. MSA is short for metropolitan statistical area..
The FBI website explicitly says that using the uniform crime data to compile overall rankings of cities is not recommended and will yield statistically flawed results because of the numerous variables that are not factored in. You need to see how much of the crime is committed against strangers..how much is drug related.. how random is the crime? Usually college towns have very high rates of property crime.. but that doesn't mean they are more dangerous places to be.. it just means that when you have a place with a lot of college students.. you tend to get more incidents of things like stolen bookbags and bicycles. So you have top contextualize all of the statistics.. and that is very ghard to do.

Okay just look at the violent crime then because that wouldn't take into account "stolen bookbags and bicycles." Augusta's is still lower.

[DisgustaTruth]

lower than what??
First of all Augusta does not report all of its crime data.. neither does Atlanta.. so you have incomplete results.. so it's rather pointless to draw broad conclusions on what city is safer..etc. The local newspaper, The Augusta Chronicle, ran a series of stories about hope they had difficulty getting crime stats from the sherrif's dept and how they were being stonewalled. The sheriff's dept was covering up or reclassifying crime that was gang related... the sheriff's dept.. kept saying for years that Augusta didn't have a gang problem, despite the numeropus complaints from local residents who saw the pervasiveness of it in their neighborhoods. Yet just this past fall, the sheriff's dept and the GBI announced the biitgest gang raid in Georgia history in Augusta... after years of saying Augusta didn't have a gang problem.
As Miranova pointed out.. there are some wonderful small businesses and entrepreneurs in downtown Augusta who are trying their darndest to turn the area around.. but unfortunately, they get little help from the local government or the power structure that runs Augusta.
Downtown business owners have been saying for years that they need more police in the district.. so that people will feel safe..and to combat the property crime downtown.. but steadily since 1996 the police presence in downtown has been reduced.. Augusta police are among the lowest paid of any city in Georgia over 50,000 in population. Downtown business owners have been asking for years for improved lighting.. and it still hasn't happened. Instead millions are wasted on pork barrel project like a golf hall of fame that was never built. and hardly anyone has ever visited, yet no one can explain what happened to over $20 million in tax dollars.. I guess Augusta got the most expensive brick wall in the world aside from The Great Wall of China. It has taken the city over 8years to decide where to build a new judicial center.. after hiring a consultant to advise them on the best location downtown.. the commission ignores their recommendation and instead decides on the site that is will financially benefit one of the Augusta power elites the most. Then their is a coliseum authority that should win the prize for most incompetent government entity in history. A bunch of 5 year olds could do a better job of running the city's pathetic entertainment venues.. Dear God.. probably Mogadishu, Somalia has a better maintained arena than Augusta. Then you have parking.. this has been a big problem for downtown merchants.. numerous parking studies have been done to create hundreds of new parking spaces and generate new revenue.. al to be shelved by the city. I swear if it would was left to the city to screw in a light bulb.. it would involve over 20 ppl and ten hours of debate, a feasibilty study, which would be ignored, and the bulb would not get changed for 5 years. So I have all the admiration in the world for the entrepreneurs risking trheir life savings to turn downtown Augusta around..for what they have to put up with...the lack of support..