NWA/Joplin Metro?

[bigboyz05]

With all the additional growth coming to NWA and Joplin caused by completing I-49 do you guys foresee an NWA/Joplin metro forming?

[comreguy]

With all the additional growth coming to NWA and Joplin caused by completing I-49 do you guys foresee an NWA/Joplin metro forming?

 

Seems like it is too far away to call it a true part of the Metro.

[KJW]

Bigboyz, I don't think so, at least yet.

 

Joplin and NWA are kind of like Shreveport and Texarkana but with a twist:  their metro areas each border the other, but unlike SHV/TXK Joplin is in a different media market than is Northwest Arkansas, though strangely: A) I believe Joplin and Bella Vista/Bentonville are actually closer to each other than Shreveport and Texarkana, and; B) McDonald County, Missouri is part of the Northwest Arkansas metro area, but is in the Joplin TV market* (of which Benton County was part of at least through the late 80s...Joplin TV is still on the cable system here.)   Not saying they might not grow together but there are chunks of sparsely populated land between them, mainly in McDonald County which I think used to be one of the most rugged and rural in Missouri.  Back in the old Rand McNally Major/basic trading area days of mapping most of the "trade" from Joplin went to Kansas City, while the most money in Bentonville/Rogers eventually went to Little Rock (as opposed to Shreveport/Texarkana where most "trade" in both cities ended up in D/FW, probably still does).  Don't know how those areas would look now 20 years after the last such map I saw with all the changes in NWA.

 

BTW, just looked it up...Joplin is at least 30 miles closer to Bella Vista, AR than Shreveport is to Texarkana.

 

(*It's been discussed here before, but (and I think it's just because it's such a boom town) you're not going to find many metro areas of a half million people that are bordered by counties in three other media markets as Benton County is (Adair and Delaware Counties, OK, in Tulsa; McDonald County, MO in Joplin; Barry County, MO and Carroll County, AR in Springfield, MO media market).  I wouldn't be surprised if this were the only such region in America you'll find this...even one-time explosive-growth Las Vegas at the edge of Nevada (as Bentonville/Rogers/BV are at the edge of Arkansas) is only bordered by two other major metro media markets, and that's in the far west where the counties are BIG and sparsely populated.)

[Mith242]

I'm not sure if this could happen or not.  I think you'd have to have a lot more growth and then it also might have to be more lopsided growth towards NWA.  Seems to me if both metros keep growing a lot, they'll simply continue to grow and not really influence each other too much.  But say if the NWA metro really outgrows the Joplin metro you might have more people from the Joplin metro interacting with NWA. 

I suppose it might have a bewtter chance than say a NWA/Ft Smith metro.  Not sure there's enough growth in the Ft Smith metro and I also think the Ozark topography would also probably hinder things.  I have a hard time seeing the Boston Mtns allowing a lot of future growth.  Seems more like they'll be more of a division there.

[aerotive]

Joplin's too far away...maybe after another century or two of population growth.

[bigboyz05]

Aerotive, a century? I seriously doubt it'd take that long.

[aerotive]

Aerotive, a century? I seriously doubt it'd take that long.

 

Yes, both NWA and the Joplin area are too low density and there is too much empty land around and between both...it would take huge, sustained population and economic growth.  Maybe 5 million more people, at the minimum.  That would take a century, or more, or never.

 

It's interesting to think about though.

[bigboyz05]

Maybe before the two cities grew into each other but for metro no. I'd say 20-30 years especially since both areas are growing.

[kyjimbo51]

I doubt there is any interest in a NWA/Joplin Metro Area. Counties are added to a Metropolitan Statistical Area when a certain percentage of the population travel into an adjacent county for employment. While it is possible for neighboring MSAs to combine there are many obstacles to overcome. Not only are there considerable rural areas between Joplin and NWA, Joplin also has a quite strong self identity as the hub of the Fourstates and would probably not tolerate any subjugation into a situation that would diminish this status. The fact is that Northwest Arkansas is considerably larger and faster growing.

 

MSA Population

 

                                                                April 1, 2000    April 1 2010

Joplin, MO                                                    157,322        175,518

Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO      347,045        463,204

 

 

Retail Trade Census

 

Joplin MSA             

                                                                no of retail establishments          retail sales ($1000)

2002                                                                      788                                   1,870,710

2007                                                                      799                                   2,573,109

 

 

Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO MSA                                               

 

2002                                                                     1502                                  3,788,196

2007                                                                     1658                                  5,451,837

 

 

 

The Joplin media is ripe with the word "Fourstates" but rarely includes Northwest Arkansas. The Designated Market for the Joplin TV stations includes no counties in Northwest Arkansas. A combined NWA/Joplin Metro area would demand not only substantial growth in demographic connections but also a monumental paradigm shift in regional attitudes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KJW]

 

 

The Joplin media is ripe with the word "Fourstates" but rarely includes Northwest Arkansas. The Designated Market for the Joplin TV stations includes no counties in Northwest Arkansas. A combined NWA/Joplin Metro area would demand not only substantial growth in demographic connections but also a monumental paradigm shift in regional attitudes.

 

I concur, but with that said:

 

• The old Fort Smith/Fayetteville DMA (TV market) fought to get Benton County OUT of the Joplin DMA it was part of in the 1980s.  (When I lived in Arkansas the first time after college I worked for KFSM-TV/Fort Smith and remember the station VP of sales talking about how they were lobbying Arbitron (long gone) and Nielsen to have Benton County added to the market.) They were successful.  Now, the market is in the strange position of having a county it fought to have included being the most populous, essentially the "driver" county of the media area now.

   

• As has been said here before, Northwest Arkansas is in another strange position of having counties in its metro area that are in other DMAs.  McDonald County, MO IS still in the Joplin DMA. That's how we have the curious situation of a new college being built almost at Benton County's border with (likely) very few people in NWA's metro knowing it.  West Siloam Springs, OK, which clearly is very much part of Siloam Springs, is in Delaware County, OK which is still in the Tulsa DMA.  (Delaware and Adair Counties in OK have been speculated to become part of NWA's metro area, though that hasn't happened yet.  We'll have to see.)

   

• A small part of the Eureka Springs public school district is in Benton County.  Eureka Springs is one of Carroll County's two seats...and Carroll is in the Springfield, MO, DMA.  (Part of the Rogers school district, since taking over the old Garfield school district, borders Barry County, MO, also in the Springfield, MO DMA.)

 

I doubt you would find any other metro area in the country that is as split between media markets as Northwest Arkansas.  I also doubt equally you will find many DMAs of 12 counties (as we have) or more where the most populous county is at the far outer edge of the DMA as Benton is being bordered by no less than three other DMAs.  I'm very serious.

 

BTW, to show how significant the changes are, back in the 80s Joplin, MO still had two high schools.  Fort Smith was, I believe, the only large Arkansas city west of Hot Springs to have more than one major high school.  Now, as of Tuesday's Bentonville School District vote, there will be three northwest Arkansas cities not named "Fort Smith" that will have two high schools, each with 2,000 or more students apiece.  (Rogers just opened up New Tech High School, which will be smaller but a third public high school for Rogers no less.)

 

And Joplin now only has one high school, and has been in that state way before the horrific tornado of May 22, 2011.  The old Joplin Memorial High School is being used by the district for a different purpose now.

 

Fascinating times, indeed.

 

(Additional strange side note.  Springfield's DMA has always treated NWA more as a viewing area than Joplin-Pittsburg, which only has focused on Benton.  Joplin TV regional weather maps still include Benton County.  However, in the 80s even Madison County (in the NWA metro now, obviously) was part of the Springfield DMA per Nielsen.  Cox Cable in Benton County still carries the Joplin-Pittsburg TV stations.  In Washington County, though, I think KOLR-TV channel 10 (CBS) of Springfield is still carried, even though Springfield is much farther from Fayetteville than Bentonville is from Joplin.  Springfield weather regional maps always include all the counties in the current NWA metro area.  Go figure.)

[TRB]

My father in law lives near Boxley Valley over in Newton Co. Sat providers give them Springfield stations as locals. He uses our Fayetteville adduced as his billing address to circumvent that. One local Springfield station carries the SEC package because of North Arkansas way before Missouri joined.

[KJW]

My father in law lives near Boxley Valley over in Newton Co. Sat providers give them Springfield stations as locals. He uses our Fayetteville adduced as his billing address to circumvent that. One local Springfield station carries the SEC package because of North Arkansas way before Missouri joined.

 

Makes sense.  Springfield's DMA has pretty much all the counties along the AR/MO border from Carroll to Fulton (Salem/Mammoth Spring).  Newton County was in the Springfield DMA for decades as pretty much the only AR county south of the aforementioned border group (Izard was there for a little while, too, now in Jonesboro's DMA).  Newton's bowed to the inevitable and is now part of the NWA/Fort Smith DMA.

 

I think it was said on this forum years ago that a college media textbook could be written about this DMA some day.

[Mith242]

Lots of interesting info.  Thanks for the posts.  

[kyjimbo51]

Delaware and Adair counties in Oklahoma will probably be the next changes in the Metropolitan Statistical Area. Given the rural nature of those two counties and the close proximity to expanding employment opportunities in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers AR MO MSA, it seems inevitable that they be added at some time. This would create a quite unusual MSA that includes 3 Designated Market Areas.

[bigboyz05]

Bigboyz, I don't think so, at least yet.

 

Joplin and NWA are kind of like Shreveport and Texarkana but with a twist:  their metro areas each border the other, but unlike SHV/TXK Joplin is in a different media market than is Northwest Arkansas, though strangely: A) I believe Joplin and Bella Vista/Bentonville are actually closer to each other than Shreveport and Texarkana, and; B) McDonald County, Missouri is part of the Northwest Arkansas metro area, but is in the Joplin TV market* (of which Benton County was part of at least through the late 80s...Joplin TV is still on the cable system here.)   Not saying they might not grow together but there are chunks of sparsely populated land between them, mainly in McDonald County which I think used to be one of the most rugged and rural in Missouri.  Back in the old Rand McNally Major/basic trading area days of mapping most of the "trade" from Joplin went to Kansas City, while the most money in Bentonville/Rogers eventually went to Little Rock (as opposed to Shreveport/Texarkana where most "trade" in both cities ended up in D/FW, probably still does).  Don't know how those areas would look now 20 years after the last such map I saw with all the changes in NWA.

 

BTW, just looked it up...Joplin is at least 30 miles closer to Bella Vista, AR than Shreveport is to Texarkana.

 

(*It's been discussed here before, but (and I think it's just because it's such a boom town) you're not going to find many metro areas of a half million people that are bordered by counties in three other media markets as Benton County is (Adair and Delaware Counties, OK, in Tulsa; McDonald County, MO in Joplin; Barry County, MO and Carroll County, AR in Springfield, MO media market).  I wouldn't be surprised if this were the only such region in America you'll find this...even one-time explosive-growth Las Vegas at the edge of Nevada (as Bentonville/Rogers/BV are at the edge of Arkansas) is only bordered by two other major metro media markets, and that's in the far west where the counties are BIG and sparsely populated.)

Thanks for the info/input KJW.