North Augusta, South Carolina

digm has shifted on economic development -you have to create a community where people want to live and then the industries chase the workforce. We noticed a lot of our high school kids,when they left North Augusta and went off to college, they were exposed to urban centers like Atlanta and Greenville and Columbia and Charlotte.When they graduated college, they didn’t move back here because those were the types of places they liked to live. So,we’ve tried to create some of those new ‘urbanist’ qualities here–downtown retail with live- above loft units, and we’ve seen a lot of our young people start to flock to the area.Now, a lot of the Millennials are renting, but we think, at some point when they begin to build families, they’re going to want to own their own homes. But they’re still going to want some of the amenities and access to some of the ‘urban-lite’ things.With these new apartments,we can introduce them to our city and, hopefully, as they grow older, they’ll move into a home in the city and we can continue to infill our population in that way.” North Augusta is also experiencing growth because of its proximity to Fort Gordon, a U.S.Amy base near Augusta.“Fort Gordon has been designated by the Army as their center for cyber warfare; that’s where the cyber command has been relocated,” says Glover.“Two thirds of the entire Army’s construction budget, right now, is at Fort Gordon; they have over $2 billion worth of contracts out there for construc- tion. So, as it’s being built,we’re having, not only an influx of military people, but a lot of cyber-related defense contractors coming into the area. It’s just