Power in Numbers

A series of talks between Arkansas River Valley and Northwest Arkansas economic leaders has apparently spawned a “new spirit of cooperation” between the camps.

On Oct. 28, a group of prominent business people from Northwest Arkansas took a well-publicized tour of Barling’s Fort Chaffee redevelopment project. The group included Uvalde Lindsey, president of Ozark International Consultants and a member of the Northwest Arkansas Council; John Lewis, chairman of The Bank of Fayetteville N.A.; Archie Schaffer, senior vice president of external affairs at Tyson Foods Inc. and former U.S. Congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt.

Lindsey also recently addressed the Leadership Fort Smith Alumni Group using words such as “partners” and “allies,” and Fort Smith leaders were invited up to Fayetteville for the council’s last quarterly meeting.

“Probably the first significant joint-effort you might see is work on an Arkansas river port,” said Gary Campbell, Fort Smith’s city director. “There’s only 65 miles between us and that would benefit the whole region.”

The combined population of the Fort Smith and Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical areas represents 646,388 people, or about 24 percent of Arkansas’ total population of 2.7 million. Little Rock’s MSA, by comparison, represents 536,557 people or about 20 percent of the state.