OPINION

REX NELSON: State of the state

I've arrived early for my speaking engagement at Fordyce Rotary Club, so I decide to head downtown and walk around. While reading the timeline of local history behind Dallas County Museum, I think about how the Dallas County seat finds itself in the same position as many small towns across Arkansas.

Despite a rich history and people who work hard to make their town better, Fordyce's population has dropped from 4,900 in 1990 to about 3,900 these days. It has lots of company across the state.

Two years ago this month, I left a position in the corporate world to return to full-time journalism after 21 years away. My mission is this: Travel the highways and county roads of Arkansas and find stories that might interest our readers. Seek out not only the places that might soon be gone, but also find people who are overcoming the odds to make their communities better.

This isn't a column based purely on nostalgia. It isn't a travelogue. My hope is that over time it will give regular readers a chance to learn about areas of the state they rarely visit while also getting a sense of where Arkansas has been in the 200 years since it became a territory, where it is today and where it is headed.

What have I learned during these two years on the road?

I've learned that this is a state undergoing rapid urbanization. There's no bigger story in Arkansas right now. Following the 2010 census, I wrote about how Arkansas had become two states within a state with 39 counties gaining population and 36 counties losing population from 2000 to 2010.

When the figures from the 2020 census come out, we'll see that Arkansas gained population during the previous decade. But I can already tell you that even though the state as a whole will have grown, a majority of Arkansas counties will have lost population. I believe 45 or more of the 75 counties will record a loss during the decade.

There are only three strong growth areas in Arkansas now--the northwest corner, the Jonesboro-to-Paragould corridor, and the counties surrounding Little Rock. In most other areas, towns that are simply holding their own from a population standpoint can declare victory.

Some of the statistics are sobering.

In the Delta from 2012-17, Phillips County lost 10 percent of its population, Lee County lost 9.9 percent, Monroe County lost 9.8 percent, and Jefferson, Mississippi and Chicot counties lost 7.4 percent. Almost all the other Delta counties also lost residents.

In the pine belt of south Arkansas during the same period, Lafayette County lost 7.9 percent, Dallas County lost 7 percent, Nevada County lost 6.5 percent and Ouachita County lost 6 percent.

The biggest winners as far as population gains during that five-year period were Benton County at 14 percent, Washington County at 9.8 percent, Craighead County at 7.3 percent, Saline County at 7.2 percent, Madison County at 4.8 percent, Faulkner County at 4.4 percent, Greene County at 4.3 percent and Lonoke County at 4.1 percent.

I don't foresee significant changes in those trends in the years ahead. Outside of the high-growth areas, the towns that hold their own or grow a bit will tend to be those with four-year institutions of higher learning. Think Arkadelphia, Magnolia, Monticello, Russellville, Searcy, Batesville and Clarksville.

I predict continued strong growth in northwest Arkansas (I just spent a weekend in Bentonville, and what's happening there on the business, dining and cultural fronts amazes me), in the Jonesboro area and in central Arkansas. It should be noted that Arkansas gained population overall last year (at a time when the neighboring states of Louisiana and Mississippi were losing population) as growth in those three areas more than offset losses elsewhere.

For Arkansas to achieve its potential as a state (especially given the inevitability of continued rural population losses), several things must happen in addition to continued growth in these three areas:

• Though the Little Rock metropolitan area has been gaining population, the capital city itself has been stagnant for a decade. That must change. Given the energy of a young mayor and a new generation of leaders, I'm optimistic if they'll focus on the right things. Those include improving schools (these young leaders must realize that charter schools and private schools are important parts of that equation), reducing the crime rate and picking up the pace of downtown development. If Little Rock makes progress in those areas, private capital investments will flow into the city.

• Pine Bluff must turn itself around. Jonesboro is booming as the regional center for northeast Arkansas. It's time for Pine Bluff to again become the regional center for southeast Arkansas. There are a few positive things finally happening. There's $20 million of construction spending downtown with an aquatics center and library being completed. The Quapaw will spend almost $300 million on their casino resort and hire more than 1,000 employees. Developers continue to raise funds for a renovation of the Hotel Pines along with the development of a downtown entertainment district.

• Hot Springs must continue its focus on revitalizing downtown while tapping into the wealthy Dallas-Fort Worth market for visitors. Progress has occurred, but major buildings--Medical Arts, Dugan-Stewart, Velda Rose, Wade, DeSoto-Howe--remain empty. Tourism is Arkansas' No. 2 industry, and Hot Springs is the state's top draw. It's essential that the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, instead of just chasing manufacturers, use its resources to recruit developers for these buildings and for the empty site that once housed the Majestic Hotel. It's also crucial that the planned renovation of the Arlington Hotel go forward.

Though rural Arkansas will continue to lose population, agriculture and forestry remain the state's No. 1 industry. That land is valuable from an economic standpoint. It's also valuable from a quality-of-life standpoint, especially in a place that calls itself the Natural State. Arkansas' natural beauty will attract talented, well-educated people if we'll do the following four things:

• Focus on keeping the state's streams as pristine as possible. The recent battle over a hog farm in the Buffalo River watershed refocused the public's attention on the importance of Arkansas' rivers and creeks. The Arkansas Game & Fish Commission has a program called Stream Teams in which groups adopt streams and work to keep them clean. Now is the time to make this program the best of its type in the country.

• Take the Game and Fish Commission's efforts to restore quail habitat to the next level. Habitat that's good for quail is also good for songbirds, small mammals and butterflies.

• Return marginal farmland to hardwood forests in the Arkansas Delta. Back when soybean prices were high in the 1970s, we cleared far too much land. It's time to plant trees again.

• Add dozens of chapters to the Keep Arkansas Beautiful initiative. Let's have the top program in America for keeping roadways free of trash. We live in one of the most beautiful states in the country. There's something that I can't help but notice when I'm on the road: We sure do like to trash it up. It makes me sad.

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Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Editorial on 06/30/2019

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