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My big gripe is the lack of things to do. Maybe it's me...I wish we had more museums (I miss the children's museum), better public transportation, more things for teens to do than go see a movie or go to the mall, and...yeah.
Also there are a lot of things to do outside...and I'm not a big outdoors person.
Eh...
I do realize I am "free" to leave at any time but the lack of sufficient funds is what's stopping me. I'll just keep saving.
I'm glad some do like the city...or else we'd be in bad shape. I'm glad there are people willing to invest and see the potential in the city. I see the potential, I just wish more people would invest so we can have more people and become a true major city.
Having lived for 7 years in the DC/Baltimore area with LOTS to do, I can safely say that most ALL of the typical things we would generally do on a weekly or even monthly basis are available in Little Rock too. We went to the museums in DC may 3 times out of those 7 years. Why? Not because we weren't interested but because we didn't have the time. See, when you live an area where there are LOTS of things to do, invariably you make sacrifices like vastly longer commuting times and less expendable income. That's just the nature of things, IMO.
I much prefer the smaller, more intimate nature of Little Rock. I totally love that our city has a plethora of locally owned and operated restaurants with character. I don't think Little Rock is too shabby in the art scene either. I'd almost go so far as to say it's more active, vibrant, and diverse in both style and artists than the much larger Baltimore! We have some fantastic galleries and the Art Center's collection of works on paper is astounding for a city of our size!
I was at World Fest on Saturday and met a young couple from Allentown PA thinking about moving here. They were both very impressed with Little Rock. While we have room to improve on many fronts, we also have NOTHING to be ashamed of! This is a fine city and will be even better if we all get involved and make it so. We have an excellent canvas to start with!
Having lived for 7 years in the DC/Baltimore area with LOTS to do, I can safely say that most ALL of the typical things we would generally do on a weekly or even monthly basis are available in Little Rock too. We went to the museums in DC may 3 times out of those 7 years. Why? Not because we weren't interested but because we didn't have the time. See, when you live an area where there are LOTS of things to do, invariably you make sacrifices like vastly longer commuting times and less expendable income. That's just the nature of things, IMO.
I much prefer the smaller, more intimate nature of Little Rock. I totally love that our city has a plethora of locally owned and operated restaurants with character. I don't think Little Rock is too shabby in the art scene either. I'd almost go so far as to say it's more active, vibrant, and diverse in both style and artists than the much larger Baltimore! We have some fantastic galleries and the Art Center's collection of works on paper is astounding for a city of our size!
I was at World Fest on Saturday and met a young couple from Allentown PA thinking about moving here. They were both very impressed with Little Rock. While we have room to improve on many fronts, we also have NOTHING to be ashamed of! This is a fine city and will be even better if we all get involved and make it so. We have an excellent canvas to start with!
I was thinking about this today and who knows...I just might stay.
My only concern: finding a job and finding a life partner. I guess I better save up for some annual trips to San Francisco. lol.
No, not necessarily; but for a city the size of Little Rock I was impressed. There's obviously a good economy there. The weather there is great, little snow in the winter, not very cold.
The long, hot, miserable, disgusting, sticky, ridiculous summers more than take the place of a lack of snow.
From the people I've talked to outside of Arkansas, Little Rock seems to be neither over or underrated. Most people have no clue about the place.
It's kind of like a blank slate, I guess. Many of them have never been there, nor have they seen that obscure HBO documentary, so they have no opinion of it. They might know that it's the capital, and something about that LR Central ordeal way back when....
Of course, you have a few people that are surprised by the fact that there's paved roads there, and the State House is no longer a log cabin.
LR is just not on very many people's map. It is not a place many folks purposefully go to on vacation. At the border of the Delta and the Ozarks, there's just not a whole lot to see or do. That's changed a little bit since Clinton's Single-Wide-Trailer-Teetering-Across-The-River thingy was built...
Of course, there's just of enough stuff to keep the locals happy.
From what I've seen, some like the size of it, because it's not overwhelming. Others want it to be bigger, but that would take away it's selling point to many who like it there. Those people don't want it to be too much. They want just enough to make it worthwhile.
Then there's morons like me. I was bored most of the time there. I guess what they had to offer wasn't what interested me. Things got really dull when they took the River Blades away. There's not much in the way of dining or shopping. Very little in the sports department. I don't do nightclubs, so the River Market's out. If I did do nightclubs, I'd just head over to Memphis and Beale Street, which seems way more authentic...
When it's all said and done, though, I'd rather just have a few acres way up in the Great North Woods somewhere...
There's not much in the way of dining or shopping. Very little in the sports department. I don't do nightclubs, so the River Market's out. If I did do nightclubs, I'd just head over to Memphis and Beale Street, which seems way more authentic..
I don't know how you can say there isn't much dining. Little Rock has quite a selection of authentic local restaurants for a city its size, and the chains are starting to filter in. Shopping...ill give people that. That is the one area I think Little Rock is really lacking compared to other cities in its tier. There just isn't much in the way of upscale or specialty shopping. I have a feeling the coming recession/depression is only going to make the situation worse. I can see why this might deter some people from liking LR, but personally I like living in a city where I am not judged by the price of my clothes. Sports....you wouldn't expect anything major in a city of only 185,000.
I don't know how you can say there isn't much dining. Little Rock has quite a selection of authentic local restaurants for a city its size, and the chains are starting to filter in. Shopping...ill give people that. That is the one area I think Little Rock is really lacking compared to other cities in its tier. There just isn't much in the way of upscale or specialty shopping. I have a feeling the coming recession/depression is only going to make the situation worse. I can see why this might deter some people from liking LR, but personally I like living in a city where I am not judged by the price of my clothes. Sports....you wouldn't expect anything major in a city of only 185,000.
There were a handful of places that I liked to eat at pretty well, but a lot of places weren't worth going to twice.
I personally couldn't care less about the shopping, especially in terms of clothing, but it seems like a lot of people wanted more.
Sports.. well, no there's not much to be expected there. It's not just the lack of spectator events, but it just didn't seem like a very active town.
Then there's morons like me. I was bored most of the time there. I guess what they had to offer wasn't what interested me. Things got really dull when they took the River Blades away. There's not much in the way of dining or shopping. Very little in the sports department. I don't do nightclubs, so the River Market's out. If I did do nightclubs, I'd just head over to Memphis and Beale Street, which seems way more authentic...
When it's all said and done, though, I'd rather just have a few acres way up in the Great North Woods somewhere...
somewhere...
somewhere I can escape the ol' rat race....
my own personal Lake Wobegon...
That's most definitely one of my biggest complaints about the city too. I'd love for minor league hockey to come back. I'm not holding my breath but I have heard the Twisters are suffering so maybe if Alltel loses them, arena management wouldn't get bent out of shape if someone did want to put a hockey team back in.
I was thinking about this today and who knows...I just might stay.
My only concern: finding a job and finding a life partner. I guess I better save up for some annual trips to San Francisco. lol.
On the job thing, I totally understand. I'm an engineer and I much preferred Fayetteville but there just weren't many jobs up that way for an engineer who didn't want to do mass production. I just had an unexplained desire to work in aerospace. In a weird twist of fate, I had to leave the state to get the experience I needed to come back and find a job I'd be willing to do for more than a single year. I'm probably working for the only company in the state that could hold my interest long term. Good technical jobs that both pay well and are personally rewarding are few and far between here, at least for me. It's sad to me that the young people of our state feel compelled to leave to get the opportunities they deserve but it is a fact. However, it HAS gotten better in the past 10 years and I think it will continue to do so...so long as the economy at large doesn't just tank all over.
Everyone has to choose their own path and what's right for some isn't right for all. For me, this state is home and I needed to come back and fight for what I loved about it and do what little I could to make it better for future generations. I just hope that people won't sell their home state and city short just because it gets little to no exposure on the national stage. We have a major inferiority complex here and I think that influences a lot of people's life decisions. It sure did mine.
Stormcrow, the aerospace industry may be coming to Arkansas. China isn't giving the quality product that was hoped it would. Keep your fingers crossed!
Little Rock is great - I am not about to live there or any other large city. I grew up in Santa Barbara and complained there was nothing to do!!! I just have to laugh about it now.
Stormcrow, the aerospace industry may be coming to Arkansas. China isn't giving the quality product that was hoped it would. Keep your fingers crossed!
Little Rock is great - I am not about to live there or any other large city. I grew up in Santa Barbara and complained there was nothing to do!!! I just have to laugh about it now.
I'm still in aero right here in LR! Because of ITAR, Chinese made products are not allowed in the hardware I work on. I'm not doing the level of work I was in MD but it's good enough for me at this stage in my life. I was doing preliminary design studies for future Mars landers and instruments as well as plenty of Earth orbiters but here I'm just designing positional instrumentation for aircraft and spacecraft. I can remember when I went to work out there, my boss told me, "There are 3 things that are important in life. The first is family, second is friends. I can't remember the third but it sure isn't work." I was like, we're designing spaceflight hardware, that's pretty damned important! Took me quite a few years to realize how right he was!
Myself, along with a couple of others here are trying to push a more systems level agenda so we can play at higher levels of assembly instead of being a high dollar, high tech widget maker. I'm still building spaceflight hardware, it's just smaller. One problem we have here in AR is we have a several different players in spaceflight applications and we seldom work together because of highly different visions. Fortunately, in my several attempts to land back in AR doing what I want, I was able to meet most all of those players.
We have a major inferiority complex here and I think that influences a lot of people's life decisions. It sure did mine.
I agree. This inferiority complex is far greater in LR than it is in NWA. I think it influences a lot of people's opinion of the city. For instance, people from all over the country want to move to NWA because they like it, but people generally only move to LR when their jobs take them and they have no other option. Most transplants will also move to Conway, Cabot, or Benton rather than LR proper because they are terrified of living in Little Rock. You really can't blame them either, this is a city and state that gets no respect on the national scene and its existence doesn't even get acknowledged until somebody wants to dog it or make fun of it. Go into the General U.S. forums here in C-D, try to pump up Little Rock, and you'll see what I am talking about. People easily buy into the stereotypes as Little Rock is so unknown that people have nothing else to go on to form their opinion. As I've said before, LR needs to find a way to put itself on America's map.
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. There's not much in the way of dining or shopping. Very little in the sports department. I don't do nightclubs, so the River Market's out. If I did do nightclubs, I'd just head over to Memphis and Beale Street, which seems way more authentic...
