FAYETTEVILLE -- Northwest Arkansas is still the fastest-growing part of the state, census figures released Thursday show, but a boundary change by the federal government cut the population of the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical area by 4.3% from earlier estimates.
Meanwhile, the Pine Bluff metropolitan area showed an upward tick after years of steep decline. Other regions in Arkansas showed either stability or losses. The U.S. Census Bureau's most recent figures revised Arkansas' statewide population downward slightly, but the revision is within the recent survey's margin of error.
Thursday's figures for the latest American Community Survey, a batch of estimates compiled by the bureau, showed the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers area's population at 526,412 as of July 1, 2018. This compared to an April survey's estimate of 549,128, a downward difference of 22,716.
That drop was caused entirely by the federal government's decision to no longer include McDonald County, Mo., in Northwest Arkansas' metro area, said director Jeff Hawkins of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission. Local leaders have debated the issue with federal authorities since late last year, Hawkins said Wednesday. The region's metropolitan area is now defined as Benton, Washington and Madison counties, all in Arkansas.
The census estimate's new figure for McDonald County is 22,287. Adding that figure to the now-reduced Northwest Arkansas metro area would raise the total to 549,239 -- almost exactly the figure in the April estimate.
The boundary change came when Northwest Arkansas stood on the cusp of becoming one of the 100 largest metro areas in the United States, said both Hawkins and Nelson Peacock, president of the Northwest Arkansas Council. The council is a group of regional business and community leaders.
Getting into the top 100 of the nation's 383 metro regions is a long-cherished goal of the council and leaders because it helps put a region on the map for retailers and expanding businesses, Hawkins and Peacock said. The council and others will redouble their effort after this change to get a full, accurate count in the upcoming U.S. census, held every 10 years and is scheduled for next year.
The decision to cut McDonald County wasn't made by the Census Bureau, Hawkins said. The definition of a metro area is set by the federal Office of Management and Budget, he said. The definition it uses requires a county to have at least 25% of its population commuting to work to a county in a metro region to be included in the same region, according to Hawkins.
"It's a measure of economic dependence," Hawkins said of the work commuter standard. "To me it makes no sense to cut it off if it fails to meet that standard in any one year, not when studies of these things are known to have errors. At the very least you should use a average of several years. In recent years that figure for McDonald County was as high as 27.2%, and I don't see any reason it would have dropped off suddenly."
"McDonald County was part of this MSA for 16 years," Hawkins said. "There wasn't any logical explanation for the change in that statistic."
Third District U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, a Republican who is a former mayor of Rogers, and others took the argument to leave the Missouri county in the metro area all the way to the chief statistician of the United States, Hawkins said.
"Northwest Arkansas is one of the fastest-growing regions in nation and is still on pace to be one of the top 100 MSAs," Peacock said Wednesday. "The council is working to ensure an accurate count in the 2020 census to achieve this goal. Northwest Arkansas' growth over the past decade exceeds the 11 MSAs that are just ahead of us in population."
In other regions of the state, Pine Bluff's metropolitan area -- Cleveland, Jefferson and Lincoln counties -- showed an estimate of 92,345 -- a 3.2% upward revision from the 89,515 figure in April. There were no changes in those boundaries.
The Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway metropolitan area showed an estimated population of 734,502. Fort Smith's metro area, which includes parts of Oklahoma, was 281,201. Others metro areas include Hot Springs at 98,296, Jonesboro at 129,755 and Texarkana at 150,034.
Compared with 2017 estimates, the Northwest Arkansas region had 535,557 people that year but included the Missouri portion. Little Rock's metro area had 738,082 in 2017, so it showed less than half of 1% growth if the latest estimate is accurate.
Pine Bluff metro's final 2017 estimate was 89,998, so an increase to this year's estimate of 92,345 would represent growth by more than 2,000 residents. Fort Smith's metro area showed a slight decline from 2107's estimate of 282,086. For other metro areas, Hot Springs' stayed virtually the same at 98,658. Texarkana fell from 152,188 and Jonesboro declined from 131,269.
Metro on 12/20/2019