27 replies to this topic

[thewizard16]

Interesting that the main cities are up to almost 300,000 now. I was thinking Fayetteville would hold level around 74,000 or possibly climb to 75,000 but an estimate of almost 3,000 in growth in the last year? Much higher than I'd expected, but I'm glad to see others are loving Fayetteville as much as I do  . Springdale's been considerably slower since the economy started going down, it appears. Benton County is definitely growing a bit faster than Washington County (due to a larger portion of their county being made up of the cities, I think), but it looks like Fayetteville has been growing by the same leaps and bounds Rogers and Bentonville have.

[Mith242]

thewizard16, on 22 June 2010 - 05:30 PM, said:

Interesting that the main cities are up to almost 300,000 now. I was thinking Fayetteville would hold level around 74,000 or possibly climb to 75,000 but an estimate of almost 3,000 in growth in the last year? Much higher than I'd expected, but I'm glad to see others are loving Fayetteville as much as I do  . Springdale's been considerably slower since the economy started going down, it appears. Benton County is definitely growing a bit faster than Washington County (due to a larger portion of their county being made up of the cities, I think), but it looks like Fayetteville has been growing by the same leaps and bounds Rogers and Bentonville have.

I think Benton County has had a couple of big factors over it surpassing Washington County.  Walmart has certainly played a big role.  But the other I think is the overall topography.  Quite a bit of Washington County is covered by the Boston Mtns.  While Benton County certainly has it's hilly areas overall it's flatter.  Flatter land is what developers look for.  A lot cheaper to develop than really hilly land.  But even if they had the exact same topography you'd have to give the past decade to Benton County.  A lot of the Walmart vendors ended up in Benton County and make enough money to help spur a lot of development and growth up there.  And eventually with Crystal Bridges and things like that you'll keep a lot of future growth going up there as well.  
I think Springdale was heading for a slowdown anyway.  I don't think it's infrastructure could keep up with that type of growth.  It will certainly be interesting to see the official 2010 numbers when they eventually come out.

Wanted to move these numbers back onto the new page.

Fayetteville 77,142
Springdale 68,487
Rogers 59,014
Bentonville 36,855
Bella Vista 25,483
Siloam Springs 14,872
Centerton 8,637
Lowell 7,42

Some other numbers around the state;
Fort Smith 85,544
Van Buren 22,663
Conway 59,511
North Little Rock 60,139
Little Rock 191,93
Jonesboro 66,194

[zman9810]

I also am surprised by Fayetteville's numbers- after the special census both it and Sprindale had a few years ago it looked like Springdale was going to pass Fayetteville up. Springdale added a lot of land through some major annexations on both sides of town and made water, wastewater and road improvements and seemed to be on the verge of a major push. The economic slowdown really took it's toll on it's development.

Good point about the land in Benton County being more development friendly. It's shame that most of the development seems to be of the sprawl type though- that will eat up a lot of land and create a whole new set of problems for that area.

[Mith242]

zman9810, on 22 June 2010 - 08:44 PM, said:

I also am surprised by Fayetteville's numbers- after the special census both it and Sprindale had a few years ago it looked like Springdale was going to pass Fayetteville up. Springdale added a lot of land through some major annexations on both sides of town and made water, wastewater and road improvements and seemed to be on the verge of a major push. The economic slowdown really took it's toll on it's development.

Good point about the land in Benton County being more development friendly. It's shame that most of the development seems to be of the sprawl type though- that will eat up a lot of land and create a whole new set of problems for that area.

Yeah Springdale did make a big move there for a while.  Technically it was bigger but it was because they had a special census and Fayetteville hadn't yet.  I guess another surprising thing about Fayetteville, is the amount of growth it's had despite a rather vocal anti-growth group in the city.  
One more city I wanted to list it's figures.

Hot Springs 39,673

I just now realized how close Bentonville is getting to Hot Springs.  Hot Springs is Arkansas' tenth biggest city believe it or not.  So in the very near future Bentonville should be in the top ten and pass up Hot Springs.  While Hot Springs is growing a little bit, it's pretty slow growth.  If Bentonville had a good year they possibly could even do it on the 2010 census.  But it will probably take another year or two.

[bigboyz05]

Good to see NWA doing well considering how crappy the economy's been.

[Mith242]

I had been expecting census figures to come out sometime this Fall.  But I read something recently that the 2010 census figures won't actually come out till Feb 2011.  So guess we've got a longer wait to see how things measure up.

[KJW]

Just heard today from a very reliable source (very serious on this) that the prelimary numbers are for the 2010 census show:

Benton: 225,000 (I guess the second largest county in the state now? - Big surprise, not)
Washington: 204,000

Honestly, I'd expected the numbers to be a bit bigger.  Doesn't look like the NWA MSA picked up any Oklahoma counties, but again, the same source said these are prelim number.

Source also said look for BIG things along the "I Street corridor" (where Bentonville is building its new city offices) on toward the airport, even with the economic problems of the past two years.

fyi.

[Mith242]

KJW, on 10 December 2010 - 03:47 PM, said:

Just heard today from a very reliable source (very serious on this) that the prelimary numbers are for the 2010 census show:

Benton: 225,000 (I guess the second largest county in the state now? - Big surprise, not)
Washington: 204,000

Honestly, I'd expected the numbers to be a bit bigger.  Doesn't look like the NWA MSA picked up any Oklahoma counties, but again, the same source said these are prelim number.

Sorry been meaning to respond to this for a while.  Benton County has been the second most populated county for a while now.  Ever since it passed up Washington County back in the 90's.  I think Washington County had even held the spot for a while.  Those numbers aren't bad but I guess maybe we're a little jaded from the figures we saw back in the 90's boom.  While Pulaski County's numbers have been somewhat stale for years,(the surrounding counties seem to be getting all the growth down in central Arkansas) I don't think we'll have to worry about Anyone overtaking the top spot.  It would be interesting to see our metro pick up an Oklahoma county at some point.  I've also been wondering if or when we might eventually get a NWA-Ft Smith CSA.  There's only two CSAs in the state and NWA hasn't managed to get one yet despite all the growth in the area.