OPINION

REX NELSON: Arkansas' big shift

The most important story in Arkansas right now doesn't involve state government. It doesn't have anything to do with this year's elections. It's instead the story of a population shift that will change this state forever.

According to the most recent census figures, two-thirds of Arkansas counties lost population between 2012 and 2017. Almost 90 percent of Arkansas counties lagged behind the national growth rate during that period. When the next census is completed in 2020, it seems almost certain that the state will have gained population during the previous decade. A majority of Arkansas' 75 counties will have lost population, though.

Just four counties--Benton, Craighead, Saline and Washington--saw growth of more than 5 percent from 2012-17. Seventeen counties saw population losses of 5 percent of more. They were Arkansas, Ashley, Chicot, Clay, Dallas, Desha, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lee, Mississippi, Monroe, Phillips, Nevada, Ouachita, Scott, St. Francis and Woodruff.

"Less population will translate into both a weakened tax base and less investment by public and private entities in infrastructure and other aspects that make communities strong and stable," says Mark Peterson, a professor in community and economic development for the University of Arkansas System of Agriculture.

"We have a development spiral model that shows the factors that go into communities on the rise and those that are on the decline. Declining communities will see a cycle that includes less public and private investment. There will be fewer or lower-paying jobs, a diminished workforce and a diminished quality of life.

"The good news is that today's economy offers opportunities that could only be imagined two decades ago. The 21st-century economy is global. It's digital. And it's fast. It's also disruptive. What worked even four or five years ago may not be working as well today. The 21st-century economy is loaded with opportunities for communities and regions that understand the key drivers of change and how to take advantage of those drivers."

This trend isn't unique to Arkansas. About 80 percent of Tennessee's population growth since 2010 has occurred in just eight of its 95 counties. Most of the growth has been in the Nashville, Chattanooga and Knoxville areas. About half of Georgia's 159 counties have lost population since 2010. Sixty percent of the population growth has occurred in six counties in the Atlanta area. Six of Alabama's 67 counties have accounted for almost all of the state's growth since 2010. That growth has been limited to the Birmingham suburbs, the Gulf Coast, the Huntsville area and the counties that contain the University of Alabama and Auburn University.

"After a nine-year economic expansion and with the national unemployment rate below 4 percent, conditions aren't likely to get much better than this," writes Atlanta-based portfolio manager Conor Sen for Bloomberg View. "The best we can hope for is probably a few more years of an economy that feels like this before economic overheating leads the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy enough to kill the cycle.

"Southern states are often seen as fortunate relative to their northern peers that are stuck with worse demographics and a hollowed-out manufacturing base. But state-level data masks significant divergences within many of those southern states. ... Growth in the South is incredibly unequal. Thriving mid-size and large cities, college towns and scenic places are growing, and just about everything else is stagnant."

Arkansas has basically three growth areas--northwest Arkansas, the Little Rock metropolitan area, and Craighead and Greene counties in northeast Arkansas. That's why I've been saying that residents of northwest Arkansas should be the biggest advocates out there for growth in Little Rock, and vice versa. Just one healthy metropolitan area can't carry the state. It will take both. Meanwhile, residents of both northwest and central Arkansas should root for the Jonesboro area to continue doing well.

In areas of east and south Arkansas that are losing population, there will be a handful of critical mass communities that become regional centers. I would bet on El Dorado, for instance, because of the massive investments being made by the Murphy family and others. I also would bet on Magnolia and Monticello because they're the homes of four-year institutions of higher learning.

As we move into the next decade, Arkansas will need at least one region south of the Little Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area to do well. Such a region doesn't exist at this time. The area with the best chance of playing that role is a triangle formed by the cities of Hot Springs, Arkadelphia, and Malvern.

That's because it contains two four-year universities (Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University at Arkadelphia), a pair of community colleges (College of the Ouachitas at Malvern and National Park College at Hot Springs), four popular lakes, a national park, a national forest and what could be the largest private capital investment in Arkansas history (the $1.8 billion pulp mill that Chinese-owned Sun Bio plans to build near Arkadelphia). If leaders of those three counties will get together and pull in the same direction, the future appears bright.

Eight of the 10 Arkansas cities that have lost the most population since 2010 are east of Little Rock. The only ones west of Little Rock are Camden and El Dorado, and they're in a part of south Arkansas in which all surrounding counties are losing population.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the top 10 losers and the number of residents lost since 2010 are Pine Bluff 6,099 (12.43 percent), Helena-West Helena 1,581 (12.87 percent), Blytheville 1,569 (10.04 percent), West Memphis 1,385 (5.28 percent), Camden 1,153 (9.46 percent), Forrest City 1,080 (7.03 percent), El Dorado 854 (4.52 percent), Osceola 831 (10.71 percent), Stuttgart 553 (5.93 percent), and Marianna 544 (13.22 percent).

The numbers are sobering, and there are no easy answers.

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Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Editorial on 06/10/2018

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