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Sammy00

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2006 Census Estimates are:

Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers MSA - 420,876

Springfield MSA - 407,092

NWA just passed Springfield in the last couple of years.

Masonsdad, I disagree with this:

I'm not sure I've ever seen a metro so dominated by a couple of large employers: Wal-Mart, Tyson, UA, and JB Hunt, etc.

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Allright, I think we can all agree that Springfield and Northwest Arkansas are great places to live. I hate whenever these stupid childish arguments happen, it only causes trouble. I myself am getting sick of the "If only NWA were like Springfield comments" and would not like to see these comments posted anymore in the forum. Now lets try and have some fun and get back to the zoo topic.

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2006 Census Estimates are:

Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers MSA - 420,876

Springfield MSA - 407,092

NWA just passed Springfield in the last couple of years.

Masonsdad, I disagree with this:

I'm not sure I've ever seen a metro so dominated by a couple of large employers: Wal-Mart, Tyson, UA, and JB Hunt, etc.

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Masonsdad, your points are valid and I agree with those, my original view was that they were bad comparisons because of how spread out the NWA "metro" is. It's still four separate cities, even if they do connect, and it doesn't and won't (for a long time) have near as urban a feel as areas of Springfield or any other more centralized metro area. I feel this is part of the reason why NWA doesn't have some of these attractions: there's not a high-density, high-traffic area that sticks out as a good place to have these type of things like there might be in single-city metros. As a friend from St. Louis observed the last time he was down here and drove through the cities on 540, "This isn't a normal metro, it's too spread out and disconnected. It's three different cities." (Being from St. Louis, Bentonville and Rogers appeared to be one city to him). And it's true. As far as so-called metro areas go, our population density feels pretty low and the land it's spread out on is huge. It's a nice area, and together, all the cities offer just about everything a normal area would, but we're still going to be hindered by the fact that we have four separate cities competing with each other and growing on their own and not forming a coherent, singular metro. THUS, why I didn't like the Springfield comparison. (It's late and I'm tired, I hope that was even partially intelligible.)

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Masonsdad, your points are valid and I agree with those, my original view was that they were bad comparisons because of how spread out the NWA "metro" is. It's still four separate cities, even if they do connect, and it doesn't and won't (for a long time) have near as urban a feel as areas of Springfield or any other more centralized metro area. I feel this is part of the reason why NWA doesn't have some of these attractions: there's not a high-density, high-traffic area that sticks out as a good place to have these type of things like there might be in single-city metros. As a friend from St. Louis observed the last time he was down here and drove through the cities on 540, "This isn't a normal metro, it's too spread out and disconnected. It's three different cities." (Being from St. Louis, Bentonville and Rogers appeared to be one city to him). And it's true. As far as so-called metro areas go, our population density feels pretty low and the land it's spread out on is huge. It's a nice area, and together, all the cities offer just about everything a normal area would, but we're still going to be hindered by the fact that we have four separate cities competing with each other and growing on their own and not forming a coherent, singular metro. THUS, why I didn't like the Springfield comparison. (It's late and I'm tired, I hope that was even partially intelligible.)
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Allright, I think we can all agree that Springfield and Northwest Arkansas are great places to live. I hate whenever these stupid childish arguments happen, it only causes trouble. I myself am getting sick of the "If only NWA were like Springfield comments" and would not like to see these comments posted anymore in the forum. Now lets try and have some fun and get back to the zoo topic.
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Masonsdad, your points are valid and I agree with those, my original view was that they were bad comparisons because of how spread out the NWA "metro" is. It's still four separate cities, even if they do connect, and it doesn't and won't (for a long time) have near as urban a feel as areas of Springfield or any other more centralized metro area. I feel this is part of the reason why NWA doesn't have some of these attractions: there's not a high-density, high-traffic area that sticks out as a good place to have these type of things like there might be in single-city metros. As a friend from St. Louis observed the last time he was down here and drove through the cities on 540, "This isn't a normal metro, it's too spread out and disconnected. It's three different cities." (Being from St. Louis, Bentonville and Rogers appeared to be one city to him). And it's true. As far as so-called metro areas go, our population density feels pretty low and the land it's spread out on is huge. It's a nice area, and together, all the cities offer just about everything a normal area would, but we're still going to be hindered by the fact that we have four separate cities competing with each other and growing on their own and not forming a coherent, singular metro. THUS, why I didn't like the Springfield comparison. (It's late and I'm tired, I hope that was even partially intelligible.)
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Another thing to consider when discussing the current limitations of NWA is the size of the metro just a few years ago. We have all seen the explosive growth in the retail and dining sectors, these are generally the quickest to adapt because well, they directly make money off of people. Other things take longer to adapt to a changing climate. Business doesn't grow like a plant, it needs either an existing corporate entity to open up a location or a local businessman with an idea and deciding to take the risk. The former is definitely happening here, but those types of businesses are generally limited to, well, restaurants and retail... The latter has to happen for us to get actual amenities, it is happening but slower than the large corporate entities coming in.

On another note, I remember a conversation I had with someone about this same topic in 1995 right after I moved here (the first time...UofA). He was saying that NWA seemed to be completely lacking in the things that most other cities of the same size had. His examples were things like Olive Garden, etc not zoos or aquariums. I told him that when the big restaurant and retail companies found out about NWA they would move in almost overnight, but that when they did you would know that the thing that made NWA what it was at that time would be dead. Since that time, the population has nearly doubled yet so many of the local flavor things I knew from that time are gone. Hopefully the reinvestment in Fayetteville and Bentonville in the downtown areas will prevent this from looking like Plano, Overland Park, or so many suburbs of large cities. Because now the cities are starting to look like the "real nice" suburbs of any major American city...without the city. Unfortunately Fayetteville definitely has the best chance of becoming the first real city up here but the current city administration wants almost the opposite. Of course, at least limiting the condo craze off Dickson might be a good thing... Nothing will kill an area faster than a lot of empty downtown buildings.

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