Husband wants to move to Conway area (Little Rock, Maumelle: rental market, insurance)

[tiredofmoving2]

Does anyone know anything about the schools in Conway area? I am also going to need a job, home to rent (animal friendly), what is the crime rate, college for me.....I know this is alot but hoping someone out there knows something about the area.

[Old Fossil]

I can answer some of your questions. Conway is booming, especially in the IT sector, and probably others. School - good public schools and a Catholic school system, two colleges are University of Central Arkansas and Hendrix College. UCA is a state college and Hendrix is an expensive private college. They may also have technical colleges. Good luck and welcome to The Natural State.

[Rock Climber]

Conway is a pretty nice town. Overall its in the top 7-8 communities in the state, IMO. Its a suburb, but also its own city. It has a downtown and three colleges. Old neighborhoods, and new ones. Good place to move to.

[Sam I Am]

Conway is considered very desirable, and I believe their school system is supposed to be excellent.

Here's City-Data's profile on Conway, in case you didn't see it - about a quarter of the way down is a chart with crime stats through 2011. Almost halfway down is a list of the universities in the area, and below that is a list of K-12 public and private schools. Some rankings of K-12 are also included here: Conway, AR schools - ratings for public & private schools - Trulia.com

My only con to Conway is the traffic - Conway has simply boomed in the last 10 years or so and there are areas where it is kind of heavy and you'd best know where you're headed if you want to end up there. I am directionally challenged (yes, that's my own word/phrase) and for some reason I just can't get where I'm going the first try :-)

It's a great mix of old and new, convenient to Little Rock and state outdoor attractions. FWIW, I don't believe Conway has a breed ban in place at this time....that's a big plus for a lot of dog owners....then again, you may have cats! I would imagine the rental market can get fairly tight because of all the colleges, but I'm not sure about that - and the availability may be seasonal depending on where we are in the school year.

[ArkIll]

What is driving an IT sector boom in Conway? I know that HP came and vastly over-promised and under-delivered; out of curiosity for my own ambitions, what else is going on in Conway IT?

[Hahff-tck]

given a choice, Conway or Maumelle

[Robert_J]

Originally Posted by ArkIll

What is driving an IT sector boom in Conway? I know that HP came and vastly over-promised and under-delivered; out of curiosity for my own ambitions, what else is going on in Conway IT?

Audience Operating System, Data and Decision Sciences - Acxiom started in Conway but the HQ moved to Little Rock. I'm pretty sure the data center portion is still in Conway.

There's also another company there. Maybe Perot Systems or some other consulting company. I have (maybe he is still there) a friend that works in Conway on mainframe projects.

[Old Fossil]

I read in todays paper that HP is repaying some of the money the state advanced them because they didn't fulfill the promise of employees hired, but in that same report they are now anticipating hiring about 500 to support the insurance industry, but I don't remember the specifics.