Is northwest Arkansas growing too fast?
Sometimes, those touting the region make it sound like there's no such thing as too fast. We're not casting any stones. It's their job to promote if for no other reason than to provide a steady stream of employees for companies that call northwest Arkansas home. We certainly want them to thrive.
There are other reasons to be growth oriented, not the least of which is that it's much easier to tackle social, infrastructure and economic challenges in the midst of growth than in the midst of stagnation or, worse, recession. Have you ever lived in a community with a population that's shrinking? Its like a family trying to pay its bills when there's more owed at the end of the month than there is paycheck. The resources are just hard to come by.
So, yes, count our blessings. Whatever challenges the region faces, its growth tends to help deliver ways to address them if they're identified and there's a will to face them.
But is the region keeping up with the negative effects of growth? Regional leaders are working valiantly on it, without a doubt. But keeping up?
Not long ago the magazine U.S. News & World Report came out with its annual ranking of best places in the nation to live. The great news is northwest Arkansas remains in the Top 10. The not-as-good news is that it was in the 10 spot.
Whining about that will appear mighty disingenuous to other parts of the state where leaders would love to be in the Top 10 of that respected ranking. But we recognize there's a limit as to just how far you can get comparing yourself to others. Ultimately, a community, a county, a region or a state has to evaluate how it compares over time to its own past and its potential.
What's that routine by the comedian Bill Engvall, something about "Here's your sign"? Well, this year's ranking is a bit of a sign for our region. Top 10 is great. Fourth is way better, and that's where northwest Arkansas was just two years ago. The region fell to 7th in 2022.
Maybe it can be said that bouncing from spot to spot in the Top 10 of a magazine's rankings isn't all that much to worry about. Is two years, to seventh then 10th, a trend? Regional leaders are thrilled to be in the Top 10 for eight years, but they do worry.
Nelson Peacock, president and CEO of the business-oriented Northwest Arkansas Council, celebrated the ranking while he also noted: "To continue improving the region's livability, we must pursue collaborative efforts to maintain economic growth, elevate opportunities for the growing workforce and address emergent challenges like housing affordability and access to health care," he said.
In other words, laurels are great, but you can't rest on them.
These rankings create opportunities for favored communities to promote their virtues, and northwest Arkansas has them in spades in large part because of simple geology. Nature has delivered an abundance of gifts to the people who call this region home, whether it's the Buffalo National River, the beauty of the Ozarks or climate conditions that make living here a breeze, and a mostly gentle one at that.
Philanthropists, made by their own efforts and the region's entrepreneurial tendencies, have given and continue to give back in ways hard to imagine 20, 40 or 50 years ago.
Concerns about burdens of rapid growth aren't typically highlighted in press releases. They trickle out as various individuals and organizations work to counteract difficulties. They're less trumpeted, but they're part of the region's soundtrack, too.
The Northwest Arkansas Land Trust works to save lands of natural significance from the never-relenting pressures of development. Regional planners conjure plans for traffic management with seemingly conflicting priorities that (1) more improved or expanded roads are necessary and (2) the region can't just pave its way out of traffic congestion unless it wants to become Dallas, Houston or even Little Rock.
A population that grows every single day can't find enough housing and what does exist continues to pressure low- and middle-income people who struggle to afford what's available. What's affordable is regularly replaced by what's not for a significant portion of the region's residents. In February, Rent.com released a study placing Arkansas fifth in the nation as far as highest year-over-year increases in rental prices. Driven in great part by prices in Northwest Arkansas, the state's average grew seven times faster than the national rate.
And speaking of population, the portion of people who have no homes grows too. Whether they are actually on the street or "couch surfing" in living rooms of people willing to put them up for a while, the stresses at the low-income end of the spectrum become greater.
Somewhere like 13 percent of households in Benton and Washington counties experience food insecurity, which isn't necessarily the same as hunger but as problematic: Imagine how well you can live a stable life, as a child or an adult, if you're unsure where your next meal will come from. Even working families, faced with higher costs of housing and other needs, go through times like these.
The Beaver Watershed Alliance and other organizations remain on constant vigil to guard against pollution of local waters, without which Northwest Arkansas' fortunes could never have improved so abundantly.
The region's medical facilities and services are amazing, and yet there are inadequacies and real concerns about the future as medical providers face shortages of nurses and medical doctors. Robust efforts to expand medical residencies and training/education for nurses are paying dividends, but the efforts cannot let up.
Work continues, slowly, on a strained criminal justice system, with officials just last week articulating how overwhelmed the courts', prosecutors' and public defenders' case loads can be. An overburdened system is a system more likely to make mistakes.
What is the meaning of all this? Are we interested in raining on anyone's parade, in being "Debbie Downer" when there really is so much to proclaim as positive for Northwest Arkansas' future? Not at all. We celebrate the aspects of life here that convinced us all to either move here or stick around.
We also celebrate everyone in the region who is working diligently to face head-on the negatives that can be exacerbated by rapid population growth and demand for space and services.
Growth and the region's wonderful amenities are well in hand, even as we acknowledge they must be nurtured. But it's the negatives that can run amok if constant attention isn't applied. And they're all too easy to want to ignore.
Amid ribbon cuttings and promotional ads for national publications, the people who are here now, who are committed to northwest Arkansas' future, must remain vigilant in responding to all these important matters so that the region's growth continues to be a reason to celebrate and not a mechanism for limiting the best of northwest Arkansas' future.