Welcome to Augusta Tomorrow’s history. To put the Augusta Tomorrow history in perspective, it is important to provide milestones of Augusta’s economic development before Augusta Tomorrow was incorporated in 1982. Therefore, this history begins in the 1800s. Augusta’s present downtown revitalization effort is one of many in the City’s long history. A notable early example was the response to the City’s economic slump in the 1830s – building the Augusta Canal System. In the 1950s, the automobile allowed for great mobility and Augusta, like many cities in the United States, saw a migration to the suburbs. In the 1970s, internationally known architect I. M. Pei was hired to spearhead downtown revitalization and to draw people back downtown. In the 1980s and 1990s, other Master Plans were developed. The 1982 plan focused on breaching the Augusta levee and bringing development to the riverfront. Subsequent plans worked on bringing the riverfront energy to Augusta’s main streets. The most recent master plan, the 2009 The Westobou Vision, for the first time included the City of North Augusta and proposed many wide-sweeping projects that are being actively developed today.