This year’s Natives Guide looks at Pulaski County through fresh eyes: Those of folks born elsewhere. These men and women know what it’s like to live in New York, say, or Vienna, and their description of life here is made with those comparisons in mind.  

Here’s what you’ll find: Folks from small towns like the big-city atmosphere. Folks from big cities like the small-city atmosphere.  

Cultural life — going to plays or art exhibits, watching some baseball, hearing live music — is intimate, accessible, but not penny ante.  

These adoptive Arkansans see our foibles in a different light. Here’s how you tell a native from a non-native: A native is more critical of our turf, and defensive at the same time (see Gene Lyons on self-critical Pulaski Countians). 

The food ain’t what you’d get down in New Orleans. We’re liberal when it comes to cooking oil, and surviving the local cuisine, Dr. Mike Gruenwald says, requires a metabolic adjustment. (But Imagine restaurant owner Adam Rosenblum is working on that.)  

The politics don’t always make ACLU director Rita Sklar happy, but she says there is at least a level of graciousness here that allows for conversation. UALR choirmaster Bevan Keating and his wife had everything stolen from their car on their first visit here from Canada ... but met up with very friendly neighbors after their move. Pediatrician Gary Wheeler has seen the air clear, thanks to Little Rock’s ordinance putting puffers on the street and out of public places. 

And so forth. Read for yourself.