Greater Little Rock area now (just) above 1,000,000 people?

[KJW]

From this article published yesterday, about work on I-49 in NWA.

Hello, all...visitor from the NWA forum here.  Just did some quick number-crunching and found this interesting, using numbers from the above piece, plus latest census bureau estimates for White County.

Central Arkansas (Pulaski, Saline, Faulkner, Lonoke, Perry, Grant Counties, I'm pretty sure) population for 2014: 729,135
Pine Bluff (3 county metro, again, I'm sure) population for 2014: 94,716
Hot Springs/Garland County population for 2014: 97,322
White County population for 2015: 79,161

I know its mixing 2014 with 2015, but the article says the CA region is growing by about 2,600 people annually, so there may be more.  But if you add up the four numbers above, the total is 1,000,334.

Arkansas is going to have 2 million-person metro areas some day.  The changes such dual events bring are going to be interesting to watch.

(I know that Hot Springs is the metro area that's usually not linked in with the other three.  But HS suburb Hot Springs Village is in Saline County and there have to be a lot of Garland Countians who commute to the LR metro area to work.  Plus, all four are in the same media market.  (By contrast, the Missouri county which is part of NWA is in a MO/KS TV market which is very unusual.)  I know this...we moved from LR to near Gainesville, GA in 1991, and moved back to Arkansas (Bentonville) in 2002.  In the late 80s when we first moved to LR, a DJ at then AM station KOKY used to call Little Rock as "the itty bitty city they call 'the tiny rock'."  Whenever I drive through this place now, it feels much more "million-person" than "itty bitty" or "tiny"...)
 

Edited July 8, 2016 by KJW

[ArkansasTraveler]

7 hours ago, KJW said:

Central Arkansas (Pulaski, Saline, Faulkner, Lonoke, Perry, Grant Counties, I'm pretty sure) population for 2014: 729,135
Pine Bluff (3 county metro, again, I'm sure) population for 2014: 94,716

The counties for the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway MSA are correct. Counties in the Pine Bluff MSA include Jefferson, Cleveland, and Lincoln.

[Architect]

12 hours ago, KJW said:

From this article published yesterday, about work on I-49 in NWA.

Hello, all...visitor from the NWA forum here.  Just did some quick number-crunching and found this interesting, using numbers from the above piece, plus latest census bureau estimates for White County.

Central Arkansas (Pulaski, Saline, Faulkner, Lonoke, Perry, Grant Counties, I'm pretty sure) population for 2014: 729,135
Pine Bluff (3 county metro, again, I'm sure) population for 2014: 94,716
Hot Springs/Garland County population for 2014: 97,322
White County population for 2015: 79,161

I know its mixing 2014 with 2015, but the article says the CA region is growing by about 2,600 people annually, so there may be more.  But if you add up the four numbers above, the total is 1,000,334.

Arkansas is going to have 2 million-person metro areas some day.  The changes such dual events bring are going to be interesting to watch.

(I know that Hot Springs is the metro area that's usually not linked in with the other three.  But HS suburb Hot Springs Village is in Saline County and there have to be a lot of Garland Countians who commute to the LR metro area to work.  Plus, all four are in the same media market.  (By contrast, the Missouri county which is part of NWA is in a MO/KS TV market which is very unusual.)  I know this...we moved from LR to near Gainesville, GA in 1991, and moved back to Arkansas (Bentonville) in 2002.  In the late 80s when we first moved to LR, a DJ at then AM station KOKY used to call Little Rock as "the itty bitty city they call 'the tiny rock'."  Whenever I drive through this place now, it feels much more "million-person" than "itty bitty" or "tiny"...)
 

The "official" broader area designation beyond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is the Combined Statistical Area (CSA).  If this is what you are referring to, according to Wikipedia, it does NOT include Hot Springs (only Pine Bluff and Searcy), and was estimated at just over 902,000 in 2013 (ranked 59th).  I have no doubt the Little Rock - North Little Rock CSA will exceed one million in the near future, but unless they redefine the area to include Hot Springs, it isn't there yet.  See the link below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arkansas

[Architect]

On 7/8/2016 at 1:34 AM, KJW said:

From this article published yesterday, about work on I-49 in NWA.

Hello, all...visitor from the NWA forum here.  Just did some quick number-crunching and found this interesting, using numbers from the above piece, plus latest census bureau estimates for White County.

Central Arkansas (Pulaski, Saline, Faulkner, Lonoke, Perry, Grant Counties, I'm pretty sure) population for 2014: 729,135
Pine Bluff (3 county metro, again, I'm sure) population for 2014: 94,716
Hot Springs/Garland County population for 2014: 97,322
White County population for 2015: 79,161

I know its mixing 2014 with 2015, but the article says the CA region is growing by about 2,600 people annually, so there may be more.  But if you add up the four numbers above, the total is 1,000,334.

Arkansas is going to have 2 million-person metro areas some day.  The changes such dual events bring are going to be interesting to watch.

(I know that Hot Springs is the metro area that's usually not linked in with the other three.  But HS suburb Hot Springs Village is in Saline County and there have to be a lot of Garland Countians who commute to the LR metro area to work.  Plus, all four are in the same media market.  (By contrast, the Missouri county which is part of NWA is in a MO/KS TV market which is very unusual.)  I know this...we moved from LR to near Gainesville, GA in 1991, and moved back to Arkansas (Bentonville) in 2002.  In the late 80s when we first moved to LR, a DJ at then AM station KOKY used to call Little Rock as "the itty bitty city they call 'the tiny rock'."  Whenever I drive through this place now, it feels much more "million-person" than "itty bitty" or "tiny"...)
 

Just stumbled on this old post...given Pine Bluff's unfortunate, and continual decline, I wonder at what point it could loss its gravitational pull and end up serving more as a bedroom/suburban community to Little Rock.  I know there are systematic definitions and criteria for qualifying to be a part of an MSA (I think the primary issue is that 50% of your work force commutes to the core city), so that would have to be met by Jefferson County.

[Walls99]

On 11/22/2019 at 12:44 PM, Architect said:

Just stumbled on this old post...given Pine Bluff's unfortunate, and continual decline, I wonder at what point it could loss its gravitational pull and end up serving more as a bedroom/suburban community to Little Rock.  I know there are systematic definitions and criteria for qualifying to be a part of an MSA (I think the primary issue is that 50% of your work force commutes to the core city), so that would have to be met by Jefferson County.

I would think that Jefferson County has a decent likelihood of being incorporated into the Little Rock MSA in the near future if current trends continue.  It is easily the next county in line for potential addition.  Perry and Grant counties were added most recently, but their small relative sizes barely put a dent in the overall population of the MSA.  After Jefferson, there really aren't any other contenders for addition.  It is the only county directly adjacent to Pulaski that is not in the MSA, and it is directly connected by interstate.  The only other possible counties would be White County or even Conway County but those are very unlikely.

[ArkansasTraveler]

Conway County could come in on the strength of enough commuters to the city of Conway, which is a co-principal city for the MSA alongside Little Rock and North Little Rock. The average commute time as of 2018 was just shy of 26 minutes, and that's an easy trip from Morrilton to Conway via Interstate 40. But, plenty more may take that time or longer to travel to and/or through farming areas toward the top of the county -- far north of the I-40 corridor.

Edited December 5, 2019 by ArkansasTraveler

[Architect]

30 minutes ago, ArkansasTraveler said:

Conway County could come in on the strength of enough commuters to the city of Conway, which is a co-principal city for the MSA alongside Little Rock and North Little Rock. The average commute time as of 2018 was just shy of 26 minutes, and that's an easy trip from Morrilton to Conway via Interstate 40. But, plenty more may take that time or longer to travel to and/or through farming areas toward the top of the county -- far north of the I-40 corridor.

I hadn't thought of this.  So since Conway was named a "co-principal" city, does that mean the in-migration commute to Faulkner County also counts (and not just to Pulaski County)?  Interesting if true.