Possible new subforums....

[johnnydr87]

Hi,

I was wondering if you could maybe give a personal forum for other states in the south.

Perhaps, group Oklahoma and Arkansas (cumulative population 6.2 million). This would give three major cities: Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Little Rock. Plus, a lot of Arkansas and Oklahoma cities are developing into healthy urban centers.

Case in point: Northwest Arkansas metro. There are four cities that make up this metro: Fayetteville, Benton, Rogers, and Springdale. It ranked first in "Best Performing Cities" last year, although it moved down to seventh place this year (http://bestcities.milkeninstitute.org/). At forbes.com, it is ranked the fifth best metro economically (or something like that, it's under forbes.com/lists). This metro is predicted to outgrow Little Rock's (around 550,000) by 2025. It is currently at 323,000. Call it the "Walmart Effect"....or "Tyson"....or "JB Hunt," but companies around the nation are making corporate officies on that I-540 corridor in the Ozark Mountains.

Additionally, Jonesboro, Conway, Fort Smith, and Hot Springs are developing quickly too (although some probably not enough to make a dense urban center, as of yet).

Also, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Little Rock consistently rank in the top cities of Forbes lists. At http://www.forbes.com/2004/05/05/04bestplacesland.html, Little Rock ranked 21st, Oklahoma City 32nd, and.....Tulsa 99th. I believe tulsa was much higher last year. (I already posted a thread entitled "Meet Little Rock, Arkansas" which showcases the new developments in the area.)

For the best small metros (under 350,000), Fayetteville AR ranked 5th, Jonesboro AR 28, Fort Smith AR 57, 116 for Pine Bluff, AR.

To put things into perspective, all of South Carolina's Major metros and minor metros ranked below the top Arkansas candidate (2.7 million population vs. 4.1). Granted, SC had more cities than Arkansas.......Two cities came close to little Rock's ranking, Charleston and Columbia at 22 and 28, respectively. In the minor metros though, SC's top minor metro, Myrtle beach, only beat Arkansas' last: Pine Bluff. (93 Myrtle Beach, 128 Florence, 165 Sumter).

The other subforum, should probably include Mississippi and Louisiana. Perhaps Alabama too (or maybe AL deserves its own subforum altogether). The population would be around 7.3 million altogether, with Jackson, Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans as the main urban centers. I'm sure they have lots of new developments (although I wouldn't exactly know....since I don't live there)... like, erm, casinos....

So why should you partner two states like OK-AR and LA-MS for their own forum? Because it would give those people a home and encourage them to post more and visit the site to brag about their locations. Particularly because Arkansas and Oklahoma are developing rather well.....Also, these states have similar consolidated populations as the other states listed with their own subforums, so, consolidating them would make sense...........

Please...

[monsoon]

Johnny we will consider it. Much depends upon how much activity we see on the forum from the areas that you mention. I agree that population of an area encompassed by a sub-forum is somewhat of a predictor of how well it might do. However not always so. We tried a Minneapolis forum and that one did not do well, nor has Canada. I can only assume that cold places don't have much to talk about. J/K, a lot has to do with finding a good moderator who can create interest in building a community for an area. Were we have had that for a subforum it has done well.

The Carolinas in particular do really well here because UrbanPlanet was started by a group of Carolina's (mainly Charlotte) forumers. The Charlotte metro includes both states.

If we see an influx of forumers from Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. then we would definately consider another subforum as we recently did with Tennessee.

[Spartan]

So tell all of your friends to sign up

[thehappysmith]

I'll note that neither here nore in the West forum is there a subforum for Texas. I also note almost no activity whatsoever regarding Texian cities in these two forums, which is very sad. I guess the Texians aren't proud of their cities.... (hopefully that will rile 'em up).

It's a shame; Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Austin all have pretty tremendous skylines; smaller cities like Midland and Corpus Christi are also interesting. El Paso, while not being particularly tall, is absolutely gorgeous. You'd think the Texians would want a forum.

[sandiego2]

Aren't they Texans, not Texians?

[cheeriokid61]

They sure are!

[Spades]

It's TexaNs There's probably not alot of Texans on this board to have a subforum or to talk about Texas much.

[Spartan]

It's TexaNs There's probably not alot of Texans on this board to have a subforum or to talk about Texas much.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If some of you Texans are lurking out there you should sign up. A subforum could be warranted if enough of you are around to participate.

[Mith242]

I'm new here, I'd also like to see something like this. But I admit I'm not sure if there would be enough demand for it. Being from a section of Arkansas near Missouri and Oklahoma, there's a bit of a midwest feel here. I've never really thought of Oklahoma as a southern state either. Arkansas overall is a pretty small state, so I imagine that doesn't help things. But I've seen some topics mentioning Little Rock and Hot Springs so maybe there's hope.

[johnnydr87]

hmmm...i totally should subscribe to my threads so I can see progress. Doh!

Yeah, so make a subforum already. We've got 4-5 people from AR. Or you could combine use with OK or something.

[Hosed101]

I think an Oklahoma-Arkansas forum sounds like a great idea. But I worry about how many people will go in there just to make fun of the states for having a hillbilly image.

You could easily combine Oklahoma with Texas however, because the two states go hand in hand, and are rivals. The OU-UT rivalry is one of America's fiercest, and most competitive rivalries in the college scene.

[Mith242]

I think an Oklahoma-Arkansas forum sounds like a great idea. But I worry about how many people will go in there just to make fun of the states for having a hillbilly image.

You could easily combine Oklahoma with Texas however, because the two states go hand in hand, and are rivals. The OU-UT rivalry is one of America's fiercest, and most competitive rivalries in the college scene.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah that always irrated me when new people moved in here and would actually say things like, 'wow, you guys actually wear shoes'. And we're supposed to be the stupid ones. I never heard any hillbilly reference to Oklahoma. Anyway I would think that Texas is big enough to have it's own. The U of A could have a great rivalry with UT if they weren't scared to schedule us.

If you were going to go the Texas-Oklahoma route, it would seem easy to fit Arkansas in with them also.

[Mith242]

Since there isn't a subforum yet, I'll ask this question here. I get the impression there's a couple of Little Rock people around. Does anyone around Little Rock perceive any rivalry between northwest and central Arkansas? Perhaps rivalry isn't the best word, I do know there are people from other areas of the state that resent northwest Arkansas, particularly southeast Arkansas. But I haven't really heard anyone from central Arkansas make many comments. The closest I've seen is some official from Little Rock who stated in a newspaper article that he was 'sick and tired of hearing about all the growth in northwest Arkansas'. I believe he also stated that there wasn't any way that northwest Arkansas could keep up it's growth and that Benton County wouldn't be able to pass up Pulaski County, even in 20 years. Then of course there was the thing about how many football games would the Razorbacks play in Fayetteville and Little Rock. I was just curious to hear any viewpoints from that part of the state.

[Mith242]

Okay I have another question that deals with Arkansas. I think just about anyone from Arkansas knows about Pine Bluff. It's struggled a lot and has had to annex lots of land just to keep itself above the 50,000 limit. Although I believe the metro area is still around 90,000. Is it possible for an area to loose it's stature as a metro area? If so what would have to happen for an area to loose it's 'metro' status? I've always been a little surprised that Pine Bluff simply hasn't been absorbed into Little Rock's metro area, considering how close it is to it. I don't know if it's because Pine Bluff has been an established metro for a long time or if it's because there hasn't been any development really between the two areas. I'm pretty sure Jonesboro has already passed up Pine Bluff and I figure it's only a matter of time before Hot Springs does the same.

[Hosed101]

Yeah that always irrated me when new people moved in here and would actually say things like, 'wow, you guys actually wear shoes'.  And we're supposed to be the stupid ones.  I never heard any hillbilly reference to Oklahoma.  Anyway I would think that Texas is big enough to have it's own.  The U of A could have a great rivalry with UT if they weren't scared to schedule us. 

If you were going to go the Texas-Oklahoma route, it would seem easy to fit Arkansas in with them also.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I especially hate it when people make up stories about finding kids rolling around in mud and empty beer cans when they come to down to "swampy, ignorant, backward" Arkansas.

I personally don't think UA has a chance if they went up against OU or UT, but bring it on! LOL

[Mith242]

I especially hate it when people make up stories about finding kids rolling around in mud and empty beer cans when they come to down to "swampy, ignorant, backward" Arkansas.

I personally don't think UA has a chance if they went up against OU or UT, but bring it on! LOL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The U of A might not have as much talent, but they usually get worked up playing against UT. We view them as a rival even though I doubt they would consider us one. I think that's why we end up beating them as much as we do, because to them we're just another team.

[johnnydr87]

Concerning UT and UA: We've beaten them 3/4 of the last times we played. The most recent was when we barely lost.

Central Ark/NW Ark rivalry: Yeah, there is a little bit of rivalry. But the only people who can sense it are the Razorback fans and those in the political and business loop.

As you know, Arkansas is a pretty Democratic state: 3/4 of our House representative are Democrats, and both of our senators. The only Republican representative is from northwest Arkansas. Mostly because of the rich business types in the area (but that is changing quickly because of the fast growing latino and asian population). Also, there's a historical reason why some racists factions are headquartered in northern/northwestern Arkansas (KKK headquarters in Harrison, White Revolution, others). Southeast Arkansas, the Delta region, experienced "white flight" in the twentieth century where lots of whites moved away to regions of Arkansas without large black populations.

Idealogically, Little Rock and NW Arkansas are very different. (You can tell I like Little Rock more.) For example, Conway is home to two fairly liberal campuses (UCA and Hendrix), two main vertabrae in the pro-gay rights voting (the whole thing where Arkansas determined that marriage was indeed between a man and woman). Little Rock is home to three major nonprofit organizations. It is home to Axciom, Alltel Wireless, Dillards, and many other little corporations. It really has a sense of diversity in industry. NW Ark is home to major corporations....really big power players..but not so many. The top three: Wal-Mart, Tyson, and JB Hunt. The first two are notorious for poor treatment of workers and bad benefits. They create two extremes: the executives with too much money for their own good and the poor thousands, or millions, they employ who go on with their lives working two jobs without healthcare. I hate that. Granted, northwest arkansas does have U of A, which I love (except for the way sports strangles academics....that's why i plan on going to the East coast for college, then coming to LR). Fayetteville is one of my favorite cities in Arkansas and certainly redeems northwest arkansas to a sizable extent in my mind.

Concerning Pine Bluff:

I don't know what's up here. I think they are making some progress from what I've read (you should subscribe to Arkansas Business). But there's not much there....from what I've seen anways. Luckily I-69 will be going near there in the future.

[johnnydr87]

Oh, and I don't think people would be so tasteless as to come into a forum just to make fun of a state...it wouldn't be hard to point out their stupidity anyhow....

[ncguy06]

I think an Oklahoma-Arkansas forum would be cool.

[monsoon]

I am willing to try it. What should we call the forum and what description should we use for it? Do you want it in the South or West?

[johnnydr87]

Suhweet.

I would definitely say South over West. No doubt. An OK-AR forum would be more of a "mid-south" forum, but south nonetheless.

Any other opinions?

Also, would you be moving old threads: Meet Little Rock Arkansas, Meet Oklahoma City, Hot Springs, etc

[monsoon]

We would consolidate all of the relevant threads into the new subforum.

[bobliocatt]

Sounds good. I'm looking forward to learning more about these states and their cities.

[Mith242]

Cool, I guess I would also prefer south. But I am also looking at it from an Arkansas persceptive. Do we have anyone from Oklahoma who would like to state any preferences? Tulsa is in the eastern part of the state which I would think might have a least a little of a 'southern' feel to it. Although Oklahoma City is pretty much in the center of the state.

[ncguy06]

When I lived in Norman, everyone I talked to considered Oklahoma to be southern.