Coming from big city to NWA...opinions please! (Fayetteville, Springdale: home, refrigerator)

[JCJOFamily]

Hi everyone!
This is my first time posting on city data...this is really such an amazing community and I thank you all in advance for your responses!
We currently live in the Kansas City metro area and are looking into the NWA area to relocate to. My husband works as an engineer here and we love the KC area but my parents live in Joplin (where I grew up). As they get older, I'm realizing it would be nice to be closer to them so that we can help them as they age, and being an hour away vs 2.5 hours away would be easier to manage going back and forth.
My question is for those of you that have moved from a larger city to the NWA area...has it been hard to adjust to a smaller city? I know the NWA area is definitely growing, but we'd be coming from a city metro of well over 1 million with great hospitals, a children's hospital, every retail store imaginable, Costco, etc... I'm just curious if it's been a difficult adjustment or if you feel that the area still has enough to offer to where it doesn't feel like such a change.
Thanks everyone so much!!

[Rock Climber]

Welcome to the forum. I've lived in DFW and Austin. The adjustment here was no big deal. We enjoy the slower pace of life and ease of getting around (although that seems to be changing over time here).

Northwest Arkansas is a metropolitan area of over 500,000 people. The retail environment here is comparable to a city the size of Kansas City in many ways. The medical community is expanding rapidly.

There is a Children's Hospital under construction in Springdale right now.

There are two "malls" with pretty much everything you'd expect to find in a larger city suburban mall. I'm not a big shopper, but there's Pottery Barn, Whole Foods, William Sonoma, all the clothing stores, etc. It seems very "complete". Fayetteville offers a lot of "local shopping" that makes it more unique than most suburbs.

There's no Costco here. Sam's Club is the substitute. I don't know the difference between the two, although I'm sure there are people with a preference for one versus another.

I think NWA is probably a lot like living in suburban KC, with better access to outdoor recreation.

Good luck finding your place here!

[gunslinger256]

no trader joes, no ikea. that's pretty much it.

[Hedlock]

I lived in KC for more than ten years. As mentioned from others, its just like living in the suburbs and much more family oriented than KC. You will have better winters too.

[Wes59]

As for the difference between Costco and Sams- Costco has better fruits and veggies, but that is about it. Costco has a super refrigerator to keep veggies and Sams has the usual equipment. They generally have the same items for the most part.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by JCJOFamily

Hi everyone!
This is my first time posting on city data...this is really such an amazing community and I thank you all in advance for your responses!
We currently live in the Kansas City metro area and are looking into the NWA area to relocate to. My husband works as an engineer here and we love the KC area but my parents live in Joplin (where I grew up). As they get older, I'm realizing it would be nice to be closer to them so that we can help them as they age, and being an hour away vs 2.5 hours away would be easier to manage going back and forth.
My question is for those of you that have moved from a larger city to the NWA area...has it been hard to adjust to a smaller city? I know the NWA area is definitely growing, but we'd be coming from a city metro of well over 1 million with great hospitals, a children's hospital, every retail store imaginable, Costco, etc... I'm just curious if it's been a difficult adjustment or if you feel that the area still has enough to offer to where it doesn't feel like such a change.
Thanks everyone so much!!

lots of people from the KC area do live in NWA and love it. Yes, we are growing,no we are not a million think but we have everything you have only in a scaled down size.

We have great medical facilities including a children's hospital under construction. We have retail just like you, but probably not the selection and we have Sam's instead of Cosco. Yes, most are somewhat partial to Cosco; there was a time we lived somewhere else and belonged to both: now it is just Sams. Our nearly renovated Sam's is amazing, with a wonderful fresh meat and seafood counter, a walking refrigerated produce room so the produce is always fresh and they even, now sell beer and wine.

Our oldest granddaughter and her family moved here about 2 years ago from a larger city; they couldn't be happier.

Let me add one more thing, believe me, having our family living here, so close is a wonderful thing. We now have our older daughter, her two daughters, their 5 kids and all the husbands here. It is love, love love. and yes, as we age, having family near is wonderful.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Wes59

As for the difference between Costco and Sams- Costco has better fruits and veggies, but that is about it. Costco has a super refrigerator to keep veggies and Sams has the usual equipment. They generally have the same items for the most part.

Wes our nearly renovated Sam's has the large super refrigerator as well.

[JCJOFamily]

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I'm feeling much better after hearing from all of you. I grew up in Joplin and left the area for KC in 1998, so my memories of the NWA area are of it being small. Obviously a lot has changed since then!! I briefly went down to fayetteville a couple years ago but did not look at any other cities so I just wasn't sure what to expect but the area definitely sounds like a suburb of KC. We live in Overland Park...a suburb on the Kansas side and rarely actually go into KC. I think the only thing I would miss would be going to the Royals games (and Costco!)

[DC at the Ridge]

Originally Posted by Wes59

As for the difference between Costco and Sams- Costco has better fruits and veggies, but that is about it. Costco has a super refrigerator to keep veggies and Sams has the usual equipment. They generally have the same items for the most part.

Just a head's up, since Wal-Mart/Sam's headquarters are in Bentonville, the Wal-Marts and Sam's Clubs here are very nice. Clean, organized, the clerks are super-helpful. Because their customers are very apt to be from the home office, or from a vendor's office that will report problems to the home office.

[Wes59]

We like Sams in the Houston area, but we also have a Costco account that we will likely close when we move up here. I always saw very little difference anyway, and Costco NEVER has signs telling what is on the given row. That is dangerous when shopping with my little lady.