It's hard to discuss Augusta's future without sounding like you're whining. But lurking behind every discussion of Augusta's future is an ugly reality: We don't have what many other state capitals have.

Our state capital doesn't have a major state university campus, as do Austin, Texas, and Madison, Wis., which provide thousands of students, staff and faculty to help those capitals' downtowns thrive. The small University of Maine at Augusta campus is within the city limits, but isolated on a hill above downtown.

Our state capital doesn't have a year-round, professional Legislature in its midst, as does Sacramento, Calif. That kind of full-time legislative presence pumps money into a community by providing a round-the-clock market for goods and services.

And our state capital doesn't even have a capitol building in its downtown, as do neighboring Concord, N.H., and Montpelier, Vt. As reporter Keith Edwards described in his three-part series, "Comparing the Capitals," Concord and Montpelier both have thriving downtowns in large part because their capitol buildings are an integral part of those downtowns.

A capital city divided

Augusta is a capital city divided -- a capital and a city, and it seems that rarely do the two ever meet.

The capitol building is almost a mile away from downtown, and the fact that it's an uphill mile is both metaphor and reality. How many of those who work at the Statehouse complex ever come to downtown Augusta?

What's wrong with Augusta's less-than-lively downtown is not simply that our state's capitol building is literally aloof from the riverside part of the city.

What ails Augusta's downtown is what ails many post-industrial New England cities: the loss of downtown industry such as Edwards Mill and the flight of shoppers because of the growth of commercial activity in malls along the city's edge. Both have robbed Augusta -- and Waterville and Lewiston, among many other Maine communities -- of their downtown vitality.

But as Edwards demonstrated in his series, state government buildings can be key to the health of state capitals and their downtowns. That can be as true in Augusta as it is in Concord and Mont-pelier.

Payments in 'lieu of taxes'

n The state pays no property tax on any of its buildings in Concord, Montpelier or Augusta, for example, an amount lost to the respective city running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But Augusta is the only capital in Northern New England that doesn't get payments "in lieu of taxes" from the state. State officials in both New Hampshire and Vermont have either been made to realize, or realized on their own, that their presence costs their host city money and that they needed to ante up.

Augusta's municipal, legislative and business leaders should push for a similar deal with the state.

n For years, the cultural agencies housed in the Statehouse complex -- the State Museum, Library and Archives -- have been busting at the seams.

One state report declared that, "... The Maine State Cultural Building is experiencing a severe shortage of archive space and physical building damage that could lead to the loss of cultural artifacts, books and archived records ... and in the judgment of the Legislature, these facts create an emergency..."

A task force examined half a dozen options, which included everything from doing nothing to relocating the building in a new structure adjacent to the Statehouse complex, in an area they called the "extended Capitol Campus."

State cultural agencies downtown?

We have another option, call it the "Really Extended Capitol Campus." Why not move the state's cultural agencies to downtown Augusta? Their presence could take advantage of, and complement, the historic buildings already downtown -- from Old Fort Western to vintage mill worker housing. The design of the building(s) could be the focus of a national architectural competition, especially given the challenges of the potential riverside sites.

Many things stand in the way of such a bold move. The downtown is prone to flooding, which poses risks to valuable state artifacts. Cultural building traffic could overwhelm the available parking near Water Street. And is there enough available real estate on which to develop such a project?

But there are many advantages to this move, which would be the closest we could come to actually moving the Statehouse downtown. Library, archive and museum users would flock downtown, providing customers for restaurants, cafes, art galleries and stores.

A city-state shuttle could connect Fort Western, downtown, perhaps even Lithgow Library to the Statehouse, providing more opportunities for State-house workers to come downtown.

Combine all of this with a Mill Park that's friendly to fishermen, paddlers and families out for a stroll or who want to buy something at the farmers' market, and you've got the makings of an entire day spent in downtown Augusta.

Possibilities are endless

Mayor Roger Katz has assembled a wide-ranging list of actions he wants the city to take to improve Augusta's chances of attracting people to its downtown. They are, for the most part, good moves that will edge the city's downtown toward greater liveliness.

But what's really needed to make our state's capital city a place that Mainers and tourists would want to come to for something beyond our shopping malls is a dramatic move, a fundamental change to our downtown.

The state has already made one of those dramatic moves, by cleaning up the Kennebec River and making it an amenity for the city, not an embarrassment. In a way, that was an unspoken partnership between Augusta and the Statehouse.

Perhaps, now, it's time for the state to engage in a more obvious partnership with the city and determine how it can directly and palpably commit to revitalizing our state capital's downtown.