Arkansas Blog

If having less corporate headquarters is a criterion for being the shadow of another intrastate region, then yeah....Little Rock's been NWA's shadow for a long time.

Each region has it's own unique character that really wouldn't put either in the other's shadow.

Little Rock has the head of the government, a more diverse population, and a centralized city (Little Rock). NWA is split up into four major mini cities (Rogers, Bentonville, Springdale, Fayetteville), and hence much more like a Dallas suburb then its own metropolis.

NWA has the flagship University--LR does not. However, the LR metro has schools like Hendrix, UCA, and Philander Smith the increase the breadth of post-secondary education.

Other than Fayetteville, NWA is a conservative mecca. It has a strong representation of both the religious right-conservatives and the business conservatives. It has great extremes in wealth (compared to LR), from the Wal-Mart execs to the Hispanic immigrant class.

Little Rock has the second most diverse economy in the United States. NWA has three corporate titans (Wal-Mart, Tyson, JB Hunt)--but not much else.

Little Rock is in a rebirth; NWA is basically still in its first, uninterrupted growth period.

NWA is home to more out-of-staters.

LR has a higher bachelors degree rate.

NWA has a bigger hispanic population. LR has a bigger black population.

LR has two high schools in the top 50 in the nation. NWA has one in the top 250. (All this is really negligible, though.)

Etc etc.

Sam's dead. Helen's dead. J.B. Hunt's dead. Don Tyson's got some scary liver thing going on.

NWA will be standing there wondering where its ass went one of these mornings when Rob Walton and John Tyson and whoever runs J.B. Hunt wake up and say, "Wait a damn minute! Charley Morgan is living the life of Riley in Dollars, Texas, and don't pay a damn cent of income tax! Why does my company need to be stuck off up here in a part of the country where the nearest Nieman Marcus is in Kansas City?"

There's a Nieman Marcus coming Claude.
Tyson is a legal resident of Florida. I don't know where Rob W legally calls home. Alice chose Tex after her "insulting" DUI charge but she manages to hang around enough to attract great art.

Regarding diversity JD, does LR have TWO Bhuddist temples? A huge Marshallese population? The largest senior population in the state?

NWA is just a few billion dollars in highways away from being the biggest metro area which most of us mindful ones hope never comes.

It's conservative no doubt. But Benton County Demo Women is the largest Demo Womens group in Arkansas.

Let me preface my post by saying that I've lived in both places and love them both.

However, people that think NWA is going to outgrow Little Rock in terms of population aren't being rational. Little Rock's MSA is about 650,000 people. NWA's is 420,000. That's a big gap, and Little Rock's MSA is only getting larger (more people are actually moving back into the city, plus explosive growth in Conway, Bryant, etc.) It's just not going to happen.

On top of that, NWA won't always grow at the rate it is now. Infrastructure is already taxed, and even another major interstate wouldn't catch it up to the infrastructure in place in Little Rock.

Let me preface my post by saying that I've lived in both places and love them both.

However, people that think NWA is going to outgrow Little Rock in terms of population aren't being rational. Little Rock's MSA is about 650,000 people. NWA's is 420,000. That's a big gap, and Little Rock's MSA is only getting larger (more people are actually moving back into the city, plus explosive growth in Conway, Bryant, etc.) It's just not going to happen.

On top of that, NWA won't always grow at the rate it is now. Infrastructure is already taxed, and even another major interstate wouldn't catch it up to the infrastructure in place in Little Rock.

good comments jimmy.
What every NWA bidnessman knows is our greatest obstacle: WATER, used and unused.
Beaver Lake at 490 miles of shoreline will not be able to keep up with growth, while Central Ark has huge reservoirs to supply its needs.

Next comes the karst topography of NWA. STEP septic systems for rural development are not working well. One local mayor, John Gray, Progressive-Greenland, has halted development until a plan can be put into place and something done about sewage treatment rather than rely upon STEP systems. Mountainous terrain is not suitable for what has been allowed. We may be poisoned enough by unregulated development that growth comes to a screeching halt just as it did in Hot Springs back in the 70s.

I love both places (Little Rock and Fayetteville) and truthfully would be happy living in either. Let me start by saying that.

As someone else said, LR has a pretty diverse economy with advanced health care and plenty of jobs in government and an abundance of law and marketing jobs.

There is plenty of evidence NWA is slowing and the LR market is improving some. Unemployment rates were 2.2% for NWA and 5.5% for LR just a few years ago. Now those have closed to 3.5% and 4.1%.

You can discuss Tyson and JB Hunt all you want but all that really matters in NWA is Wal-Mart. Tyson's paying people peanuts to pluck chickens. Wal-Mart's corporate employees are important but over the last decade most of NWA's non-Hispanic growth has been because of WM's vendors building offices buildings and filling them with educated newcomers.

I'm not sure Alltel and Acxiom won't expand or go public again. Their fate is unpredicable but they could grow as easily as they could shrink. I believe Morgan when he said they will shift employees and do most of their growing in LR because employees are 20-30% cheaper than in Chicago and California.

Wal-Mart is stagnating. It's stock hasn't moved for nearly a decade, even in the current bull market. A series of mistakes like higher quality clothing, opening stores too close to one another, and international expansion in areas they couldn't compete like South Korea has set the company back. It still has the potential to grow, especially internationally. However everyone sees job growth at WM leveling off now. There is the remote but devastating possibility of corporate relocation if the situation worsens or the very real possibility of spinning off Sam's.

It is bad for Arkansas if any part of the state does poorly. A WM relocation and real estate crash in NWA would hurt tax revenue for all of us. Mass loss of jobs in central Arkansas would hurt NWA for the same reasons. We're better off if both regions continue to prosper.

Klump would do well to read Saskia Sassen's work

Little Rock in the shadow of Fayette Nam, Chickendale, and the rest of northwest Arkansas? That's the best laugh of the day so far.