is Bentonville growing too fast (Little Rock, Fayetteville: how much, neighborhoods, live)

[gptaz]

I have sort of narrowed my search down to either Bentonville (area) or Mountain Home. They both meet my needs for golf and classic car clubs.

I worry if Bentonville is growing so rapidly that it will lose the small town friendliness that I got used to growing up in a small Mo. town. That is what I have missed in Ca.

[woopig_sooie]

It's hard to answer that, becuase to me Bentonville, Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers are basically all one large Metro now that rivals the population of the Little Rock metro. IMO, NW Arkansas is growing too rapidly, and will likely lose any remaining small town feel in the next few years.

[gptaz]

looks like i probably choose Mt. Home

gptaz

[tippy]

Originally Posted by gptaz

I have sort of narrowed my search down to either Bentonville (area) or Mountain Home. They both meet my needs for golf and classic car clubs.

I worry if Bentonville is growing so rapidly that it will lose the small town friendliness that I got used to growing up in a small Mo. town. That is what I have missed in Ca.

Bentonville ... the headquarters of WalMart. I guess Bentonville will continue to grow as long as Walmart continues to grow.

[deeptrance]

I've only driven through the area so this is an "uninformed" opinion. But I think the Bentonville-Fayetteville area is beautiful and can retain a lot of its best qualities even as it merges into a much larger metro area. This is what has happened in Austin as well. The important thing is to be active in civic life and make sure that developments are planned well, that you're not just being jerked around by California and New York developers who only care about making a fast buck and don't care if they wreck the character of your beautiful region.

Preserve the old neighborhoods, set aside lots of green spaces, and make sure that infrastructure is able to keep up with growth. You might be surprised by the results if it's all done intelligently. Then again, it could just end up in mindless sprawl. Most likely it will be somewhere in between --- lots of things you like such as new stores and restaurants, more cultural activities, new friends, combined with the headaches of more traffic, destruction of your favorite green spaces, changing attitudes that you might not like...

Whatever anyone's opinion might be about growth, there is no stopping it in that area. From Tulsa to Springfield to Fayetteville, it's all just too good to ignore and people will move there for the relatively mild 4-season climate, access to outdoor recreation and natural beauty. Embrace it or fight it or find a place where there is no growth (like north central Iowa )

[joebaldknobber]

When will Bentonville explode with growth again?

Originally Posted by gptaz

I worry if Bentonville is growing so rapidly that it will lose the small town friendliness that I got used to growing up in a small Mo. town. That is what I have missed in Ca.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by joebaldknobber

When will Bentonville explode with growth again?

wow, this thread is 4 years old and with the recession I am not sure how much Bentonville or the NWA area has grown since then. It will be interesting to see what the census shows.

Nita

[thewizard16]

Originally Posted by nmnita

wow, this thread is 4 years old and with the recession I am not sure how much Bentonville or the NWA area has grown since then. It will be interesting to see what the census shows.

Nita

They were projecting around 35,000 last I heard, but that's just a partially educated guess. They are claiming since 2000 the NWA primary cities will have gained over 100,000 people though, which is almost crazy to think about.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by thewizard16

They were projecting around 35,000 last I heard, but that's just a partially educated guess. They are claiming since 2000 the NWA primary cities will have gained over 100,000 people though, which is almost crazy to think about.

I can believe it, BV had 16000 in 2000 and now it is over 25,000 based on 2 years ago.. I guess for us, this still seems like nothing coming from Dallas, Los Angeles, NO Va and the bay area of Ca. Now, compared to the county we lived in in NM, NWA is huge..(population wise, that is)

Nita

[thewizard16]

Originally Posted by nmnita

I can believe it, BV had 16000 in 2000 and now it is over 25,000 based on 2 years ago.. I guess for us, this still seems like nothing coming from Dallas, Los Angeles, NO Va and the bay area of Ca. Now, compared to the county we lived in in NM, NWA is huge..(population wise, that is)

Nita

Proportionally though, it's very similar to the the Dallas growth, it's just a much smaller starting population. In the early 2000s, NWA was the 6th fastest growing metro in the US (by percentages of course). If Fayetteville or Springdale were a couple million, I bet you'd see (on the same scale)what happened with Plano or Frisco in the North Dallas area (Frisco has just been insane in the last several years) happen with Bella Vista or Bentonville. North Dallas population growth is crazy and I'd certainly like to avoid growth that rapid and uncontrolled in NWA. If the cities' master plans stay in effect and they are careful about managing growth, we could sustain continued rapid growth over the next decade, but once the area hits half a million, I think the cities are going to have to start working together more closely to manage growth and transit instead of each doing their own thing.