Originally Posted by
mattm
Wow, I had no idea!
The downtown reminded me of Montgomery, AL - depressed and depressing. Augusta has more "soul" though, Montgomery always seemed really generic with no real style.
Augusta seemed like it was at one point a cool place, then the money left. Or maybe it just move out to the 'burbs.
It's a bit of both. The city depended heavily on cotton and textiles, which all moved away. And, in the 70s and 80s, there was massive white flight to Columbia County to the north. There's quite a bit of money still in Augusta. It has a surprisingly large manufacturing and chemical industry, but that is outside the city.
Downtown was basically abandoned, and efforts to revitalize it have been stymied by two large property owners who hold about 60 percent of the land. One has done a lot, building new hotels and a convention center. But the other is a true slumlord, who owns a couple of burned out buildings that she refuses to invest int.