Topher1

The difference between WR and Aiken is connectedness. The ENTIRE portion of Aiken county that is urbanized is connected to Augusta in its UA. North Augusta straddles Augusta, and a solid string of urbanized mill towns connect Aiken and North Augusta. It would be absurd to think that a county whose primary population base is included in the Urban Area (UA) of a city would not be included in it's metropolitan area. That said, Aiken Co. is a clear (though somewhat codominant) part of Augusta's MSA, and that's likely not changing. The city of Aiken is really just a bookend, with the stuff between the cities commuting either way (though primarily to Augusta or SRS). The city of Aiken really doesn't have a huge job base. As for the Columbia MSA/CSA question, that could certainly be a future possibility. Currently Northeast Aiken Co is one of the most sparsely populated areas in the state, comparable to much of the rest of the Savannah River counties. Even still, according to census 2000, about 2500 Aiken Co. commuters already make the trek into Lexington and Richland Co. That's small compared to the 12000 heading into Augusta, but it's still a relevant population. However Lexington Co. would really have to start getting crowded before a significant number of Columbia commuters start to find the podunk hyphenated areas of Aiken Co (Wagener-Salley, Ridge Spring-Monetta, Batesburg-Leesville in Lex Co) attractive.

^ As of 2000, the % of Aiken workers commuting into GA was between 15% and 25%. That already falls below the census' one-size-fits-all criteria for MSA (but not CSA). However, a large percentage of Aiken Co's workers are GA residents as well. All in all there is a lot of commuting across the state line. For all intents and purposes, the area is tied together and a breakup of the MSA will not happen. (However if it did, Aiken would probably bring along Edgefield and possibly Barnwell). The growth in North Augusta will insure that a steady stream of commuters will take the short trip across the river. Major job losses have been the story in the county at Avondale and SRS, and even still the housing market is historically strong. If anything, the traffic across the border is increasing. Simply stated, unlike Warner Robbins, Aiken Co. does not WANT to be a separate area. Columbia Co. likely wouldn't mind breaking away from Augusta's image problems, but fortunately there's zero chance of that happening, since there's no employment base there...

Very exciting, though my stomach would be a little more settled if they even had a project website...

^ Hephzibah accounts for the missing people in Augusta's totals. I don't know the politics, but they chose to remain an independant town rather than succumb to consolidation. It's kind of an isolated area anyway, so it makes sense. I'm just happy Augusta finally saw an small uptick in population this estimate. We were on quite a freefall for a while. I don't expect explosive growth in Richmond Co for a while. The desirable areas are pretty built out (downtown to Columbia Co borders), and South Augusta still has a few more years to mature before it will see big growth. I'd suspect that a good portion of Fort Gordon's small BRAC growth will be absorbed in Columbia Co near booming Grovetown. I'd expect more of the same growth patterns in the area overall for a few years, with the biggest difference being a gradual slowing in Columbia Co and an acceleration in Aiken Co (primarily in North Augusta and Graniteville). A stronger North Augusta will likely have serious positive implications on Augusta itself.

No... Savannah River Pkwy and the Fall Line Freeway are part of an older GDOT plan to link the 2nd tier metros with 4 lane, non-grade-separate highways. The premise was, IIRC, to enable the majority of Georgians to have reasonable 4-lane access to the interstate highway system... These are not interstate-grade roads, just standard surface roads.

Great shots... I'll be home around the July 4th holiday and can't wait to take my usual area tour...

I think, realistically, N. Augusta has the chance to eventually outshine Aiken. Whereas Aiken is pretty hemmed in, both geographically (surrounded by irreplacable historic homes on huge 1-5 acre lots) and politically (anything over 3 floors will "ruin the character of downtown"), N. Augusta really has a blank slate to work with as well as less draconian zoning regulations. I've been continually impressed with the leadership over there. The city council recently denied a bank's application for a drive-thru at it's downtown location because it's not the style of development they felt would fit in downtown. That seems like a small measure, but it's something that even the leaders down here in booming downtown Orlando have been unable to successfully do...

http://www.mbkahn.com/index.php?option=com...4&Itemid=47 Found this sketch of the N.A. Municipal Building a while back, but couldn't find it again to post it. It's a crude sketch, but it looks like an awesome final product. M.B. Kahn from Columbia won the bid to build it at $17.6 million, and if I remember correctly, this is supposed to break ground this summer. This will be an awesome anchor for their emerging downtown. Augga, is the new road Central Ave. (from the Hammond's Ferry site plan)? That's the one I've been waiting on (as well as the West Ave. extension) since they connect to the city so much better than the Crystal Lake entrance... If construction is underway on that road, that may mean that they're starting work on the Hammond's Ferry town center soon! I saw a blurb in last weeks North Augusta Star that the plan for "Hammonds Ferry, Section A-3" was to be discussed at the May 17 planning commission meeting. Perhaps this is the next development phase? I haven't seen the results because the Star updates its online paper very slowly....

I'm pretty sure Sage Creek can, just based on the maps I've seen... I haven't actually driven by the site (in the daytime at least). Trolley Run is adjacent to USCA, so it's far from I-20... There's some aerials of the construction at http://www.sagecreek-aiken.com/ ... I can't quite ascertain proximity to I-20, but it's definately close. There's some pretty dramatic hills in that area, so I'd imagine at least some is visible from the highway.

Yeah, the Palmetto Parkway is underway. SCDOT has it as one of the state's featured projects in the construction section of the website, as well as the (super-detailed) plans. The construction at the Graniteville exit is the Sage Creek subdivision previously mentioned... Like 1500 or so small, ugly homes in a gigantic, treeless, clear cut field.. There are other smaller and more upscale subdivisions going in around there too... But yeah, Sage Creek and Trolley Run Station (5000+ total homes) will pretty much fill any gaps between Graniteville and Aiken.

If you look at the further broken down numbers I posted a few weeks back, all of the estimated growth in Columbus occurred between 2005-2006. The was virtually no growth in the 2000-2005 estiimates. Extrapolating just the 2005-2006 estimated growth, Columbus looks poised to do very well in the next few years.

^ Sunshine is right though, downtown is very small in area. Of course, this can be viewed as a positive thing, as almost every project underway in downtown is bringing something new and exciting to a relatively small area. Compare that to the throngs of projects spread out for miles in Miami/Brickell/Biscayne. While the projects are larger/grander/glitzier/far more plentiful, they're really not going to have the transformative effect that's happening it DT Orlando, simply due to how far apart they're spread, and how pock-marked and non-continuous Miami continues to be away from the water. For what it's worth, for the time being and for the near future, I consider DT Orlando to be a far more livable, strollable, and attractive DT than Miami... Miami Beach is another story of course.

McCormick is not included (yet at least)... Also surprised that Barnwell hasn't ever been added to the CSA... I mean the region's largest employer is about 1/3 in Barnwell county... The counties are Richmond, Columbia, McDuffie, Burke, Aiken, and Edgefield. You can get definitions for all MSA's, CSA's and Micro's at this link: http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/metrodef.html Just check out the tables under "Definition Files"

Regarding Savannah... every county in that metro is doing great, Chatham included... Surprisingly, tiny little Effingham has added more than 10000 residents since 2000... Thats a pretty serious growth rate for a small county... Chatham added almost 9000 in that time...

Just a quick question... Is Chattahoochee a primarily military/Ft. Benning dependent county? I noticed it's had downright bizarre growth patterns when I was doing my MSA/CSA calculations. 2000: 14,882 2001: 15,967 2002: 19,327 2003: 13,195 2004: 13,372 2005: 12,406 2006: 14,041 I assume that the strange fluctuations have to do with large deployments..? If this is the case, this county probably has big things in store with the Ft. Benning expansion...

Yay. The 2006 county estimates are out! New census releases are like Christmas to me. Here's my quick calculations of the 2nd tier metros growth. As always, feel free to correct any inaccuracies, as these calculations were done pretty quickly... 2006 Census Estimates: Augusta MSA: 523,249 Columbus MSA: 288,847 Columbus/Aub-Ope/Tusk CSA 437,222 Macon MSA: 229,326 Macon/Warner Rob./Ft. Val. CSA 381,641 Savannah MSA 320,043 Savannah/Hines-Ft. Stew. CSA 394,066 2005-2006 Numeric Change: Augusta MSA: + 5,394 Columbus MSA: + 6,373 Columbus/Aub-Ope/Tusk CSA + 8,942 Macon MSA: + 1,357 Macon/Warner Rob./Ft. Val. CSA + 3,615 Savannah MSA + 6,587 Savannah/Hines-Ft. Stew. CSA + 8,800 2005-2006 Percent Change: Augusta MSA: + 1.04% Columbus MSA: + 2.26% Columbus/Aub-Ope/Tusk CSA + 2.09% Macon MSA: + 0.59% Macon/Warner Rob./Ft. Val. CSA + 0.96% Savannah MSA + 2.10% Savannah/Hines-Ft. Stew. CSA + 2.28% 2000-2006 Numeric Change: Augusta MSA: + 23,566 Columbus MSA: + 7,079 Columbus/Aub-Ope/Tusk CSA + 16,317 Macon MSA: + 6,958 Macon/Warner Rob./Ft. Val. CSA + 24,840 Savannah MSA + 27,043 Savannah/Hines-Ft. Stew. CSA + 29,152 2000-2006 Percent Change: Augusta MSA: + 4.71% Columbus MSA: + 2.51% Columbus/Aub-Ope/Tusk CSA + 3.88% Macon MSA: + 3.13% Macon/Warner Rob./Ft. Val. CSA + 6.96% Savannah MSA + 9.23% Savannah/Hines-Ft. Stew. CSA + 11.00%

Awesome... I assume/hope they intend to keep the first floor as retail. That's one of the best retail spaces on Broad St. It'll need to be subdivided before it can attract a restaurant or small shop, so I hope that's part of the plans... I also hope the water tower stays... Did anyone see the 2006 in review article in today's Chronicle by the director of the DDA? The most surprising stat from the article was that downtown had a net GAIN of 63 businesses and 269 jobs. While I never noticed a huge amount of progress (an unfamiliar storefront here and there), a gain of 63 businesses is a huge deal, and downtown will be looking good if that pace continues through 2007... http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/030507/yrb_118640.shtml

AirTran is most likely already sponsoring the new UCF Arena/Convocation Center.

Thanks for the update. Although I'll always bemoan the loss of my favorite movie theatre ever on that site, this project looks great in downtown. On a crappy note, that entire retail space (4 spaces) on ground level will be used as a real-estate office. Freakin waste of space. I'd love to have seen 4 new restaurants and/or shops to anchor that side of Laurens.

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Not sure if anyone caught the blurb in the Aiken Standard yesterday, but groundbreaking for the final phase of the Palmetto Parkway (I-520) will be held this Monday. Looks like they're finally ready to begin construction.

I think it's quite likely. The communities (Graniteville, Warrenville, Vaucluse) seem to support it. If it does go through, I doubt Graniteviille would be the name of the new community, just due to the fact that it would be the combination of several old communities. For ego's sake, a new name would probably be in order. If this does happen, I'd predict Aiken, North Augusta, and Graniteville to all be fairly close in population in 10-15 years (between 25000 and 35000).

According to state laws regarding incorporation, no city/town can be incorporated within 5 miles of an existing city or town, unless the new city/town has more than 7000 residents at a certain overall density. So in order to satisfy that, they've drawn the boundaries to an area that includes just barely over 7000 people. However, if this happens, the two largest new housing developments in the county will be in the new city's city limits, which would boost the population to around 15000 within a few years...

^ bah... I suppose it's more "progress" than that side of town has seen in years, but this will be the final death blow for the Kalmia Mall property just a mile down the road... It really is a shame, because there really aren't many Roses stores left, and that one will probably close within a year once Wal-Mart opens... Of course the Kalmia Mall property would be an amazing location for a mixed-use development, but I suspect that it will just sit vacant and rotting for the time being if/when Roses closes...

If the Parliament House can organize a parking shuttle from the Citrus Bowl on its special event nights, then I really don't think that would be an unrealistic plan on game/concert nights if it comes down to it... A few Lymmo buses would do the trick... Of course I also agree that leaving the car in the burbs and taking the commuter rail in is the best course of action