[hotair2]

Originally Posted by kdb05f

Originally Posted by Dr. Foosball
This thread had potential.


Yup, it had a lot of potential. Too bad it got hijacked.

Well we can get off of Little Rock and talk about NW Arkansas. Huge growth, but everyone knew that, but I was surprised about Springdale. Why more growth there instead of fayetteville. It certainly could not have been white flight.

[Dutchman01]

Originally Posted by hotair2

That is the wonderful thing about the U.S. You can live anywhere that you want. I lived in Little Rock as an adult and although it is only anecdotal evidence I was never a victim of a crime and certainly not one targeted because I was white.

I am certainly not scared to live in Little Rock. I never felt unsafe at any time. Pulaski academy is one of the best if not the best school in the state, although it is private school.

Your post on racism is probably better suited for the politics forum. You can start a thread there and I would be happy to talk to you about it there, but as an FYI, I believe that anyone can be racist.

It's all politics my friend. As an aside I will always respond when someone suggests I am a racist. I am many things but I'm not a racist.

[Dr. Foosball]

Originally Posted by hotair2

Well we can get off of Little Rock and talk about NW Arkansas. Huge growth, but everyone knew that, but I was surprised about Springdale. Why more growth there instead of fayetteville. It certainly could not have been white flight.

I wonder how many people in Springdale weren't counted...

I am also surprised at how small Greenwood's population is. All I have heard for years is about how Greenwood was getting so big. They are still under 9,000.

[Dutchman01]

Originally Posted by northbound74

Anyone who really knows Little Rock agrees. To say otherwise only makes it look like one's never been there.

LR isn't the most racist place in the world, but white-flight is certainly perpetuated by racism to a large degree. All that other stuff is after-the-fact. Poor and often undereducated people were left behind, ignored, and faced many prejudices when trying to better themselves. After that, things can go downhill fast.
I realize the topic far more complicated than one paragraph can explain, there are many variables. By the way, I'm not some bleeding-heart type that thinks everyone should go around feeling guilty or angry over what happened decades ago. Just move on.

Anyway, I was a little surprised that a few of the Ozark counties lost population. Didn't expect that.

I understand your wanting to "move on" but I disagree. However, in this case, with the federal courts in control of the school system what better way to respond than to simply leave.......and take their tax base with them.

In regards to the "poor and undereducated" being ignored, I'd hardly say that. The state has been required to spend huge sums of monies on the little rock and pulaski county school systems. I was required some years ago to spend two weeks attending a school in north little rock learning how to teach "reading first." It was a "gee whiz" reading program for elementary teachers.

Coming from a frightfully poor school district in northwest arkansas I was in "awe and envy" of the facilities and teaching aids they had. My children were/are just as poor as those children of north little rock. Unfortunately for them they had no federal judge to tell the state just how much and what is to be spent on them. Pity that.

Getting back to the census report I was surprised by the population loss of the delta and southern part of the state. Yet, we still managed a 10% increase overall. I would like to see more information from the census. I suspect we'll encounter even more surprises.

[Dutchman01]

Originally Posted by Dr. Foosball

I wonder how many people in Springdale weren't counted...

I am also surprised at how small Greenwood's population is. All I have heard for years is about how Greenwood was getting so big. They are still under 9,000.

I've had inservices on their campus. Wow, just wow! It looked like a college campus. Quite remarkable.

[bagelw]

Originally Posted by hotair2

Well we can get off of Little Rock and talk about NW Arkansas. Huge growth, but everyone knew that, but I was surprised about Springdale. Why more growth there instead of fayetteville. It certainly could not have been white flight.

It's cheaper to live in Springdale. I also think since it's in between Rogers and Fayetteville there are a lot of people that work in Rogers/Bentonville that don't want the commute from Fayetteville but they still want to be close to all the offerings of Fayetteville. There is the huge hispanic population in Springdale too.

Little Rock's main issue is it's history. People only seem to remember the bad parts of history with LR and assume it's still the same. I lived in LR during some of it's darkest days (the late 80s early 90s ) and I would have no problem moving back there.

[hotair2]

Originally Posted by Dutchman01

I understand your wanting to "move on" but I disagree. However, in this case, with the federal courts in control of the school system what better way to respond than to simply leave.......and take their tax base with them.

In regards to the "poor and undereducated" being ignored, I'd hardly say that. The state has been required to spend huge sums of monies on the little rock and pulaski county school systems. I was required some years ago to spend two weeks attending a school in north little rock learning how to teach "reading first." It was a "gee whiz" reading program for elementary teachers.

Coming from a frightfully poor school district in northwest arkansas I was in "awe and envy" of the facilities and teaching aids they had. My children were/are just as poor as those children of north little rock. Unfortunately for them they had no federal judge to tell the state just how much and what is to be spent on them. Pity that.

Getting back to the census report I was surprised by the population loss of the delta and southern part of the state. Yet, we still managed a 10% increase overall. I would like to see more information from the census. I suspect we'll encounter even more surprises.

Well we can agree on something eventhough I am a "bona fide liberal" according to you. I am originally from Georgia and Atlanta city schools receive more money per student than any city in the state. There are very rural schools that can barely afford text books.
The funding in Georgia is completely dependent on local property tax well the rural communities do not have very much valuable property so they receive less money per student. I am not sure how Arkansas does it but i think each student should have the same allocation no matter where you live in the state.

[kdb05f]

Originally Posted by bagelw

Little Rock's main issue is it's history. People only seem to remember the bad parts of history with LR and assume it's still the same. I lived in LR during some of it's darkest days (the late 80s early 90s ) and I would have no problem moving back there.

I don't remember what the website was, but a few weeks a go I saw some official estimates of Little Rock's population since the 2000 census going year by year. Oh one thing to point out is that Little Rock did show faster growth in this census than the previous one. Back to the estimates though. Most of Little Rock's growth was in the past 3 or 4 years. earlier in the decade it was only growing by a couple hundred per year but the last years of the decade was growing by 2000+ per year, so it seems the city is showing an upswing in the growth curve.

My guess is that the Clinton library and development and condos downtown and the River Market district has a lot to do with it. Probably people who want a more urban experience moving into the city rather than the 'burbs.

[kdb05f]

Originally Posted by Dutchman01

Getting back to the census report I was surprised by the population loss of the delta and southern part of the state. Yet, we still managed a 10% increase overall. I would like to see more information from the census. I suspect we'll encounter even more surprises.

The losses in the Delta and southern part of the state weren't at all surprising. It was expected and has actually been going on for decades.

[Dutchman01]

Originally Posted by hotair2

Well we can agree on something eventhough I am a "bona fide liberal" according to you. I am originally from Georgia and Atlanta city schools receive more money per student than any city in the state. There are very rural schools that can barely afford text books.
The funding in Georgia is completely dependent on local property tax well the rural communities do not have very much valuable property so they receive less money per student. I am not sure how Arkansas does it but i think each student should have the same allocation no matter where you live in the state.

Property taxes are raised by the locals but for the most part the monies come from the state. As for all students receiving the same, that wouldn't work here. Some communities have more resources to tax than others. Also some communities will have more folks willing and able to pony up more monies than other communities, greenwood is an excellent example of this. Disparities will always exist.