Population Guesses Rescore Need for Roads

Population projections for the Little Rock/North Little Rock metropolitan statistical area and the Northwest Arkansas MSA show that the latter is growing more than twice as fast as its Southern sister.

That’s an increasing point of contention among area leaders because multiple highway projects in Benton and Washington counties, which has only one divided highway compared to five in Little Rock, remain in the middle of multi-year delays.

Individual projections made both by the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Institute for Economic Advancement show ultimately the same thing, although UALR’s numbers are slightly more conservative.

The numbers are based on a variety of statistics including new housing starts.

The Walton College numbers predict Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville and Madison County will grow no less than 16 percent every five years through 2025. That would land the area’s population by then at 697,784, nearly double the 2004 estimate of 368,192.

The same school predicts the Little Rock/North Little Rock MSA’s top growth rate will be 6 percent, culminating in a population of 776,673 by 2025 — only 78,889 more people than are expected in Northwest Arkansas.