What are comparable cities in 'feel' and 'size' to Little Rock?

[Timothy123]

I know this is an old thread, but LR reminds me of Columbia, SC. Though LR feels somewhat larger than Columbia.

[Tyryztoll]

20 years ago I would have said Louisville, KY, but Louisville has exploded since then.

Columbia is a good comparison. Knoxville, TN.....Albuquerque, NM also?

[BMW335i]

I'm glad someone "resurrected" this thread as I don't think I had seen it. I think lots of good points are made here. I agree that in reality, Little Rock is a bigger metro than most realize given the way municipalities are divided/distributed here.

When North Little Rock (deviously) split from Little Rock in 1904, I think it forever changed the perception of the city. Combined, today's population of just LR and NLR would be about 270,000 - and it might have been bigger had it always been one city. If Sherwood were also accounted for, which is ENTIRELY contiguous with NLR, at 30,000, this essentially equates to a central city of 300,000, which would align more typically with the scale of what might be expected as an anchor to a metro of 750,000 (est. 2019).

But to everyone's point, it too often gets compared with smaller metros because of the central city's population, like Shreveport and Jackson, when it's arguably a better comparison to Omaha or Albuquerque...and maybe even Tulsa. Though these examples are all slightly larger, I think they're more comparable than Jackson or Shreveport. In fact, you'd have to REMOVE Little Rock from the LR-NLR-Conway MSA for it to be the same size as Jackson, and you'd have to cut the metro by MORE THAN HALF to compare it to Shreveport.

All of this makes me lament the various efforts over the years to combine LR and NLR, or even create a combined county-wide municipal entity like Nashville and Louisville have done. If that were the case, the city would be right at 400,000. There was some effort and momentum in this regard for a while after the "regional" Central Arkansas Water was formed - Warren Stephens for example was publicly promoting this concept about ten years ago. The world is getting smaller and smaller - this only makes sense in competing on even a regional stage.