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Do you think the LR metro will ever hit 1 million?

bigboyz05

By bigboyz05
in Little Rock Metropolitan Area

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Aporkalypse City

Aporkalypse

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Predicting the future in this way is so hard. There was time when the Fayetteville area eclipsing Pine BLuff and Ft Smith would've been laughable. I think Pine Bluff and Hot Springs will be brought into Little Rock's MSA and that will help. With 630k in the MSA now without these communities and a current growth rate of about 10% per decade I would think 20-30 years would be about right.

I get the vibe that LR's fortunes are improving and it is being seen as a nicer place to live than it was when crime and urban blight were problems back in the 1980s. LR has a diversified service and white-collar economy that I think will serve it well. Boy, though, bad fortunes at a couple of key companies like Alltel, Acxiom, and Stephens can shake the town up just as NWA would if Wal-Mart or Tyson had issues.

NWA will reach 1 Million in 50 years if growth continues at the current pace.

A lot of things would have to change for that to happen. It would mean more than tripling the area's population.

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tim2462 Hamlet

tim2462

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The area will most certainly hit a million, and probably a lot sooner than most people think. Little Rock's growth has been pretty slow for a while, but steady. That is changing...like pork said, a lot of people are discovering that Little Rock is a nice place to live. The city has an urban base and it's beginning to build on that. The surrounding counties and suburbs are beginning to swell. I think that will be what pushes us up to the million mark. Salt Lake City is smaller than Little Rock, but has over a million in the metro. Atlanta has under 500,000....but the metro is over 4 million. The same thing is going to happen here...the surrounding areas will swell, while Little Rock grows at a more modest pace. Faulkner County has been seeing this growth for sometime. Lonoke County / Cabot are booming....and now Saline County is beginning to explode.

Amazing things are happening in Saline County. Bryant is growing faster than it can handle. Benton is a city that just a few years ago was shrinking, but they've even had a turn-around. Benton is going to be the next boomtown in Central Arkansas...and it's already starting. All of the metroplan people say that the new 6 lane interstate down through Saline County is going to cause that area to explode. It's good to see that Central Arkansas is well on it's way to becoming a real metro.

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Mith242 Gigalopolis

Mith242

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It's certainly possible but as Aporkalypse said there's so many factors. I've seen info printed back in the 60's that predicted Pine Bluff, city not metro, hitting 100,000 by the 90's. Of course we know that never happened. I do like Little Rock's chances to grow much better of course. But what if something like Axciom getting taken over and a possible Alltel merger happened and both headquarters were moved? While Little Rock is certainly more diversified than any other Arkansas city I still think that could be a big hit. And I have heard talk of both before so it's not impossible. Of course same thing applies to NWA even more so. If Wal-mart moves out it back to the days when you had to go to Fayetteville to do everything again.

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Aporkalypse City

Aporkalypse

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It's certainly possible but as Aporkalypse said there's so many factors. I've seen info printed back in the 60's that predicted Pine Bluff, city not metro, hitting 100,000 by the 90's. Of course we know that never happened. I do like Little Rock's chances to grow much better of course. But what if something like Axciom getting taken over and a possible Alltel merger happened and both headquarters were moved? While Little Rock is certainly more diversified than any other Arkansas city I still think that could be a big hit. And I have heard talk of both before so it's not impossible. Of course same thing applies to NWA even more so. If Wal-mart moves out it back to the days when you had to go to Fayetteville to do everything again.

I saw where a CA jury found against Wal-Mart for not giving lunch breaks, awarding the plaintiffs $187 mil. Sure, that's chump change for Wal-Mart but this big red X on Wal-Mart's forehead is growing. Hopefully, some of the newer things Wal-Mart is doing will help prevent this.

I know we had another thread about this somewhere, I just forgot where it is.

I can also tell you that when LR's MSA hits a million Pulaski Co will have no more than 500,000. Most of the growth will continue to be in Faulkner, Saline, and to a lesser extent Lonoke Cos.

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Mith242 Gigalopolis

Mith242

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I saw where a CA jury found against Wal-Mart for not giving lunch breaks, awarding the plaintiffs $187 mil. Sure, that's chump change for Wal-Mart but this big red X on Wal-Mart's forehead is growing. Hopefully, some of the newer things Wal-Mart is doing will help prevent this.

I know we had another thread about this somewhere, I just forgot where it is.

I can also tell you that when LR's MSA hits a million Pulaski Co will have no more than 500,000. Most of the growth will continue to be in Faulkner, Saline, and to a lesser extent Lonoke Cos.

Don't think that more revitalization of the downtown and the condo craze will help get more population into Little Rock and Pulaski County?

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tim2462 Hamlet

tim2462

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Don't think that more revitalization of the downtown and the condo craze will help get more population into Little Rock and Pulaski County?

Sure, that's going to help Pulaski County grow...there's even going to be condo development on the NLR side of the river. It's just that the surrounding counties are growing so fast, they will be what makes up most of the population as in many metros around the country.

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johnnydr87 Burg

johnnydr87

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Hopefully a major business will move in or a major business will be created in little rock soon to boost population. You can't build condos without anyone to move into them ;)

I'm glad city leaders are taking notice at all the growth around the 6-lane I-30 in benton/bryant. This should be a lesson for all future projects: build the infrastructure first for fast growth----not the other way around.

Because idiotic city leaders didn't have foresight, it's hard to expand roads in areas that are growing fast.....resulting in deadlock and eventually strangling growth.

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tim2462 Hamlet

tim2462

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That's happening a lot around Little Rock. They are not building infrastructure before the development.

Two areas that come to mind are Colonel Glenn area and Kanis Rd. Kanis is a little windy, narrow two-lane road in WLR that needed to be widened long ago because of heavy traffic...residential has been increasing in that area for several years and now they are beginning to bring retail and other businesses to Kanis Rd itself.

Crye-Leike has a new shopping center on Kanis behind the Embassy Suites. There's almost a mile of land being cleared, starting at the intersection of Bowman, stretching west along Kanis...The signs say, "Retail and office." That area is already in gridlock most of the time and now they are bringing in all of this new stuff...and no signs at all of widening that little road! Everybody knows all the stuff going in on Colonel Glenn...and the huge 500,000 sq. ft. shopping center they are doing dirt work on already...that's right next to the rave theater and they haven't done anything with that road either.

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tim2462 Hamlet

tim2462

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Ugh. Yeah.. It's a statewide problem.

Central Avenue is 5 lanes...........but its THE major road in hot springs. ALL the development is there. It's terribly gridlocked all the time.

Oh Yes, Central Avenue! That has to be the most gridlocked traffic nightmare in the state. I think Hot Springs gets overlooked a lot of times on money for roads because of the population...or what people think the population is. What a lot of people don't realize is that while the population is only around 37,000...the REAL population is about 80,000. Garland County has over 90,000 people and growing. Only about 10,000 or so of those are spread out in the county...the other 80,000 are in Hot Springs. For some reason, the city won't annex south of the lake or along a lot of it. There are several huge residential areas north of the lake not in the city limits. A lot of the new apartments being built are not in the city limits. Then you have the 30-40,000 that commute in from surrounding counties every day and add 2.5-3 million tourists to that per year...you have a traffic nightmare! They are working on the problem a bit, but not enough. Higdon Ferry is a detour around Central Ave...they are widening it in some places, but not the whole thing...the traffic on it is almost as bad as Central. Something needs to be done about Central Ave. traffic. I'm not sure what all they could do. I know it's a good location...but maybe the city and developers should start developing other parts of the city more and not put every single new business on Central Ave. Oh, and I'm still baffled at how it took them 5 years to build that 2 mile extension of the expressway...WTF!

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tim2462 Hamlet

tim2462

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Don't forget all the tourist either. I'm not sure if it's the top but I imagine it's one of the top tourist city in Arkansas. They also help increase the amount of traffic too.

excerpt from my post...

"and add 2.5-3 million tourists to that per year...you have a traffic nightmare!"

lol

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tim2462 Hamlet

tim2462

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If only that was the only mistake on here. If you look more closely you can find quite a few more. :lol:

Well, it's more productive to count what you put into the forum, not the mistakes that are made. We all make mistakes...look at my post on McFadden's...somebody beat me to that one lol.

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Aporkalypse City

Aporkalypse

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Sure, that's going to help Pulaski County grow...there's even going to be condo development on the NLR side of the river. It's just that the surrounding counties are growing so fast, they will be what makes up most of the population as in many metros around the country.

Getting the Pulaski Co Schools straightened out after all of the federal desegregation problems will be a big help. Letting Maumelle have its own schools will help that area boom and Jacksonville will quit stagnating once its schools are removed from the PCSSD.

Condos will have an impact but still remain a small percentage of the total market (especially just high rises).

Ugh. Yeah.. It's a statewide problem.

Central Avenue is 5 lanes...........but its THE major road in hot springs. ALL the development is there. It's terribly gridlocked all the time.

Central Ave in Hot Springs and Harkrider in Conway are the most absurdly congested roads in the state. Markham and Cantrell really need to be widened but the right of way's not there and you can't tear down century-old homes and buildings to widen it. Ultimately, I-630 will have to handle the load and fortunately it can and will be widened.

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tim2462 Hamlet

tim2462

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They are only downgrading central ave to 3 lanes for a few blocks downtown...and that is just a trial thing to create a plaza type area. You were talking about cantrell and markham needing to be widened, but no right of ways...well Hwy. 5 in Bryant and Kanis Road are the same way, they are building so close to the road and they will be no room to upgrade the roads.

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