Elements of Urbanism: Augusta

[thelakelander]

Decatur (founded in 1822) is a city that has been long gobbled up by the growth of Atlanta.  it would be similar to Murray Hill, which was once a separate city five or six miles outside of downtown Jacksonville.  It's the county seat of DeKalb County.

I spent a few hours there yesterday.  It's a nice community with a decent downtown atmopshere and direct access with the rest of Atlanta via MARTA.

[thelakelander]

I have good friends who are currently in Augusta for work. We visited them up there a while back. I didn't think it was so bad at all. While it they do sometimes have the appearance of revitalization projects that were abandonded halfway through, downtown and the historic neighborhoods have some pretty impressive architecture. There is an entire former Confederate powderworks facility that we just stumbled upon randomly, one of my favorite memories ever.

I'm an industrial architecture buff.  Here are a few pics of the old Confederate powderworks site.

[vicupstate]

The wider area has some other interesting features, such as the pleasant little burgh of Aiken, South Carolina.

Aiken is very nice.  Their DT is completely revitilized and is very attractive. Definitely worth the short trip from Augusta.

[Noone]

Visited Augusta a number of years ago. A family thing.  What we did when we were there was take a boat ride on the canal. The boats were non motorized and operated off batteries. That part of the canal was restricted. Kayaks were allowed. Trolling motors were OK.

I believe we went by the old Confederate powderworks site in the boat. The canal is behind the building. It was fun.

[Traveller]

Aiken's #1 advantage is a significant population of uber-wealthy horse people.  They allow a town with 20,000 people to have some of the dining, shopping, and entertainment options of a city several times its size.  The downside is that they drive up costs (particularly housing) for the rest of the area's residents, who don't have a ton of employment options other than the Savannah River Site and an Owens Corning plant.

Augusta's downtown has definitely seen better (and worse) days.  I'd hate to think what the city would look like without the medical college.  The Riverwalk opening 20+ years ago was huge.  Before that, there was almost no reason to go downtown save for the occasional concert or court appearance.  The growth in neighboring Columbia County has been remarkable, similar to northern St. Johns County, FL or Shelby County, AL.

Of course, Augusta will once again be the center of the sporting world in 8 days, especially since Tiger is back. 

[krazeeboi]

This tour of Augusta was much better and much more representative of the urban core than the very first one that was done here on MJ.

As others have said, the urban core has great bones and there's a ton of potential. There are quite a bit of historic structures downtown given its age, especially churches. I happen to like the quirky and somewhat eclectic nature of Broad Street and surrounding areas; in that sense, it gives you the flavor of districts like Little Five Points in Atlanta, San Marco in Jacksonville, NoDa in Charlotte, Five Points in Columbia, etc. within the urban core itself. Because Augusta isn't really a business center, it doesn't have a main street dominated by office uses which is why it has retained a good bit of its historic urban stock (and a lot of what was lost wasn't just via demolition, but due to the great fire of the early 20th century). There have been some new civic buildings erected recently as well, including the new library:



and new county judicial center:



One of the biggest barriers to overall downtown cohesion that exists currently is the levee that separate the Riverwalk from the rest of downtown. That's why you've got those high walls that serve as entrances to the Riverwalk in certain sections:



As far as the "dump" comment goes, Augusta does have its fair share of blight in areas close to the urban core, but some of that is getting cleaned up via the revitalization of the historically African American  Laney Walker and Bethlehem neighborhoods.

I did a photo tour of downtown last year if anyone wants to check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30101980@N06/sets/72157627076827630/

[thelakelander]

^Great photos.  I really enjoyed them.  If you have photos of other cities you've taken, I'd like to feature them in future articles.

[krazeeboi]

Thanks man. So far, I've got shots of Columbia, Jacksonville, DC, and Philly. Rome, GA for a smaller city.

[Noone]

Nice pics. krazeeboi how would you like to kayak in Downtown Jax? I've got a two seater and you can sit in the front and if we catch the tides right we can go under the TU on McCoys. Under the Hyatt Parking lot and the Plaza at Berkman. I don't think anyone has posted pics of that yet and you can catch Khans yacht. We can continue on past Shipyards/Landmar and the pier. You can capture pics from the water of the super dredge of Hogans Creek. And we can finish or even start at the Jacksonville Marina and put the kayak in at the brand new no fishing signs that were never before Waterways.

I was looking at your pics and maybe I missed it but do they still have that attraction in Augusta where you can ride the boat in the canal? 

[krazeeboi]

I think you can still do boat tours of the Augusta Canal, but I'm not completely sure.