I’d never given much thought to human settlement patterns in Augusta, Ga. I don’t follow golf, so the city is no more likely to enter my consciousness than, say, Minsk or Ougadougou. But I do make it a habit to observe what I can of human settlement patterns wherever I go. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. The neighborhoods near the August Country Club are quite beautiful. There are many handsome houses lining impressive thoroughfares. Augusta loves its trees and landscaping, and this is the season for the dogwoods and azaleas.
In most respects, Augusta displays the same human settlement patterns that pervade the United States: segregation of residential and commercial land uses, and segregation of neighborhoods by income. There was, however, one small, delightful surprise.
We took a “short cut” yesterday through a neighborhood to avoid the awful morning traffic near the golf course and managed to get quite disoriented by all the windy, hilly roads. (In other words, we got lost.) But the neighborhood was stunningly beautiful. It was heavily wooded, with steams, stone bridges and immaculately landscaped gardens . For all its beauty, though, the neighborhood appeared to be a monoculture of detached, single-family dwellings, all in the same narrow price range ($1 million or so, applying Richmond valuations).
Then, to my surprise, we rounded a curve, and there was an apartment building, a structure with eight or so units. Solid brick, tastefully done, not out of character with the houses nearby. Then, a little further, we encountered a long row of townhouses. These “multiple-family dwellings” fit seamlessly with the single-family houses.
Now, this wasn’t exactly “workforce” housing. Instead of limiting itself to the top one percent of income earners, these dwellings might have opened up the neighborhood to the top 25 percent of the region’s income earners. But, hey, it was income diversity of a sort.
I can fully understand why homeowners might want to keep their neighborhoods free of crack houses and halfway houses. But I never understood the need to segregate housing within the same narrow income band. Why not open up the neighborhood to households of smaller size and somewhat different incomes? This neighborhood in Augusta, Ga., did so successfully. Try it, you might like it.