It's easy to find depressing things to read if you spend time surfing the Web. Those of us who live in the state's largest city are bombarded with rankings that tell us that Little Rock is one of the most dangerous cities in the country. The state has taken over the Little Rock School District, and we're told by talk-radio callers that Northwest Arkansas has surpassed Central Arkansas in size and prestige.
It's time for all Arkansans to step back, take a deep breath and get a sense of perspective about the capital city. The growth of Northwest Arkansas has been a blessing for the entire state. Arkansas, which is bleeding population in many of its rural southern and eastern counties, needs both Northwest and Central Arkansas to do well economically. As far as size though, it's not even close. The metropolitan statistical area that encompasses the northwest corner has 500,000 residents. That includes one county in Missouri. The Little Rock MSA has about 730,000 residents.
As for crime, no one will deny that it's too high in Little Rock. But in 2014, the number of violent and property crimes was the lowest in years, according to the mayor's office. There was a 5 percent decrease from 2013. Violent crimes were down 5.5 percent, and property crimes were down 4.9 percent. There was a 27 percent decline in robberies and a 15 percent reduction in burglaries.
As for the Little Rock School District, the state takeover might be the best thing to happen due to the efforts of the state-appointed superintendent, Baker Kurrus. He's among the smartest people I know. Kurrus, who received his bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas and his law degree from Harvard, was on the Little Rock School Board from September 1998 until August 2010. He knows the district inside and out and has gained the support of a Little Rock business community that had all but abandoned the public schools.
I can make a good argument that Kurrus is the most important person in Little Rock right now. The next most important person will be the person hired to succeed Joel Anderson as chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. For Little Rock to prosper, the city's largest institution of higher education must prosper. The pressure is on the UA Board of Trustees to hire a leader who understands the role of an urban university and can win over the business community.
A mistake many people make is comparing Little Rock to Austin or Nashville, state capitals in far larger states that also are the home of nationally respected universities. Add the music scenes in both cities, and you can see that Nashville and Austin have amenities Little Rock will never have. A fairer comparison would be to Birmingham, Ala., and Jackson, Miss. In 1950, Birmingham had a population of 326,037, more than triple the size of Little Rock. By 2010, Birmingham's population had fallen to 212,237. While Birmingham has been losing population, Little Rock has steadily gained in each decade, from 102,213 in 1950 to 193,524 in 2010. With a population expected to surpass 200,000 in the next year, Little Rock is now the same size as Birmingham rather than a third its size.
In 1980, Jackson had a population of 202,895. Little Rock was at 159,151. The current population of Jackson is about 170,000. Little Rock now has about 30,000 more residents than a city that was larger by at least 40,000 people in 1980. Little Rock has been heading just the opposite direction of Jackson and Birmingham in recent decades. In Arkansas, Bass Pro Shops and an outlet mall chose to locate in Little Rock. In Mississippi, Bass Pro and the adjoining outlet mall went to the suburb of Pearl.
Last year, I pulled into downtown Jackson for a meeting of the Southern Foodways Alliance on a Friday morning. Having grown accustomed to downtown Little Rock's revitalization, I was shocked by the lack of activity in Jackson. I spent the afternoon walking, and the atmosphere was eerie. In Little Rock, work continues on the $68 million renovation of the Robinson Center. While city leaders placed too much faith in an out-of-state developer named Scott Reed, who can't seem to find the financing needed to finish projects, the chances are good that others will take over those developments and ensure the rebirth of Main Street. The Little Rock Technology Park, a project for which the city has committed more than $20 million in sales tax revenue, will soon become a reality.
Other parts of town in the past year have seen the opening of a $23 million transmission operations center for Entergy Corp., a new Southern operations center for regional energy transmission organization Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator, a $52 million facility in southwest Little Rock for Federal Express and a major expansion for Dassault Falcon Jet adjacent to the city's airport. Dr. Dean Kumpuris, a member of the Little Rock Board of Directors for two decades, says: "We're headed in the right direction. The strongest thing we have going for us is a group of people willing to roll up their sleeves, identify the problems and then attack those problems." He describes the decision to place the technology park downtown as "an absolute winner for everybody."
Kumpuris recognizes there's work to be done in the areas of crime prevention and public education. But unlike the social media naysayers, he believes the glass is half-full. Birmingham and Jackson would love to be in Little Rock's shoes.
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the director of corporate communications for Simmons First National Corp. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 10/28/2015