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There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to population growth in northwest Arkansas.
The region is anchored in the demographic strongholds of Benton and Washington counties, but also includes rural Madison County. The region has added 100,000 people over the past decade and the most recent figures put the population at 560,709, almost 5% more than just two years ago when it stood at 534,904.
The constraints and constraints — and opportunities — presented by population growth were discussed at the Northwest Arkansas Region State Luncheon Thursday at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fayetteville.
“People are still moving here,” said Mervin Jebaraj, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business. “I think it’s a good thing. It’s something that adds to the vitality of the region and contributes to our economic growth.
The region was the first to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic recession in the state, at least from an employment perspective. Since late 2020, after the pandemic caused economic and social upheaval, the state has added 27,000 jobs over pre-pandemic numbers, including 17,000 in northwest Arkansas, a said Jebaraj.
Jonesboro, Little Rock and Fort Smith have also recovered the number of jobs lost during the heat of the pandemic, while Hot Springs and Pine Bluff are still recovering their way.
Jebaraj said the economic news on Thursday was good regarding a possible recession. GDP growth was 2.6% in the third quarter, a setback after two negative quarters. Jebaraj therefore predicted that the country will remain recession-free in the near future.
The US Federal Reserve, however, plans to continue raising interest rates in an attempt to stave off inflation, so a recession in 2023 remains a possibility.
The region’s report compared Northwest Arkansas to its “peer group,” consisting of six other metropolitan statistical areas that include Austin, Texas; Madison, Wis.; and Provo, Utah. Against these heavyweights, Northwest Arkansas has held firm in metrics such as population growth and unemployment and poverty rates.
The region ranked low in terms of median household income, percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and spending on university research and development.
The University of Arkansas had $165.8 million in R&D in 2020, down more than 5% from 2018, and ranked the university No. 133 nationally. The university recently began construction on its $194 million Institute for Integrative and Innovative Research, slated to open in 2024.
Nelson Peacock, CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council, said the region’s main goals are to fill the research and development gap and attract or retain more employees with bachelor’s degrees to the northwest. ‘Arkansas.
“You can see there’s a lot of things we’re doing really well, and you’ll see some areas where we need work,” Peacock said. “Northwest Arkansas is at an inflection point. We still have to fill some of our economic gaps; we need to do this aggressively to ensure that the next 20 years will be as good as the last 20 years have been economically.
Housing is one of the main concerns of most leaders and citizens in the face of population growth in the region. Housing prices have soared 128% over the past decade, making home ownership much more difficult for the middle class.
The area is unique in that four major cities, from Bentonville at the geographic top to Fayetteville at the bottom and all the smaller satellite towns in between, intersect; many residents work in one city and live in another. Another complication of the population-housing dilemma is the sprawl of growth: homes that are more affordable are farther from work and play areas, making transportation costs problematic.
The keynote speaker at the luncheon was Rick Cole, who is the executive director of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Cole said he’s only been in northwest Arkansas for a short time, but he understands why it’s a growing region.
“This is God’s country,” Cole said. “You have a beautiful landscape. You have some distinctive historic towns. That’s why this place has such loyalty from people who have lived here and why it’s such a magnet for people to come here.”
That said, change does happen, Cole said, whether for better or for worse. The region’s leaders need to go into the communities and decide what kind of future Northwest Arkansas wants to have.
“A vision should be a shared community vision,” Cole said. “It has to be, what does the community want to be when it grows up?”
Sprawl has been a reality for decades, as communities have become dependent on home-work-play zones that are separate from each other and connected by cars. This has resulted in fewer walkable and bike-friendly communities and more with “piercingly ugly” roads, Cole said.
Cole said using a form-based zoning code could help improve the quality of life for communities compared to traditional zoning that separates by land use. Many young people prefer to live in walkable communities, which can be done through new zoning ideas and letting developments develop naturally rather than having each new development done all at once.
“I didn’t come from California to tell you what to do,” Cole said. “I came here to tell you that you have to make tough choices and you have to make them as soon as possible.”