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The Premier Midsize Southeastern Community The Metro l Augusta VISION process was designed to utilize the "Strategic Thinking" of our citizens to create "the future we want" for the five-county MSA plus Burke County, Georgia. A 114 member VISION Task Force generated the initial VISION and Strategies statement, the media involved every interested citizen through its coverage, and on January 12, 1995, a town meeting gave everyone an opportunity to provide input for the VISION. The resulting VISION and Strategies provide a verbal picture of Metro Augusta's six counties preparing to compete in the 21st century global economy. The VISION will provide focus for annual planning and daily decisions. The five county Augusta-Aiken MSA made up of Columbia, McDuffie and Richmond, counties in Georgia and Aiken and Edgefield counties in South Carolina grew dramatically between 1970 and 1990. MSA's are defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMS) with the latest update on June 30, 1993. Among 310 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States, Augusta-Aiken with a population of 417,730 2 ranked 107th in 1990 - - up 36% from 306,550 and 115th in 1970. Total jobs increased 95,000 or 67% in the twenty-year period. However, there is tremendous change in the 1990's as 1) corporations respond to international competitive forces, 2) the military establishment is downsizing and 3) the world economy transitions from the industrial to the technology era. For example, the Savannah River Site (SRS) has reduced its annual payroll by $500 million. These changes have created feelings of frustration and unease among many citizens uncertain about the future. This climate of unease accentuates the need for an evaluation of where we are and for clear VISION and Strategies for the future. 1 "Metro Augusta" throughout this VISION includes the five county Augusta-Aiken MSA plus Burke County, GA. A major action step during the 1990's is to persuade the OMB to include Burke County in the MSA. Burke's 1990 population of 20,579 included in the MSA would change the US population ranking from 107 to 101. 2 Job, per capita income ranking and population data are from the "1993 MSA Profile-Metropolitan Area Forecasts to 2015" by Woods & Poole Economics, Washington, DC. Woods & Poole has adjusted the data to include the same five counties for the entire data series. Employment data is for all jobs including 2nd and 3rd jobs, military and government and is located by place of work. Population, employment and income data are for July 1 of each year. This employment definition is broad and includes wage and salary workers, proprietors, private household employees and miscellaneous workers. Because of the broad definitions and place of work counting the number of jobs are frequently larger than other employment data series. MSA data was used for a Benchmark Comparison series because consistent data is available for 50 MSA's comparable in size to Augusta-Aiken. The Benchmark Comparison will be updated on a regular basis to monitor the MSA's progress. 1/13/95 |
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