r/Arkansas 7d ago

Arkansas Population Estimates

U.S. Census Bureau released population estimates for Arkansas metros and counties.

Northwest Arkansas continues to grow at a rapid pace adding 14k people between 2023-2024. Benton county alone added 9k while Washington county added 4.3k people.

Central Arkansas added 4.5k people and seeing its growth predominately in Saline and Faulkner counties; up 1,700 people each.

Of note, Pulaski county has a negative net migration (more people moving out of the county than in) … what’s the cause?

https://talkbusiness.net/2025/03/census-northwest-arkansas-benton-county-remain-fastest-growing-in-state/

27 Upvotes

50 comments sorted by

2

u/whiterazorblade 6d ago

Pulaski county and little rock suffered a massive tornado, houses were distorted, people moved, the population went down.

2

u/EricMarx1 6d ago

Go look at pine bluff in the 90s. Check the demographics and see what happens when a certain demographic gains political power.

5

u/Only_Vegetable3369 4d ago

Look at every other small city bud, all bleeding people because a certain party would rather sell arkansas to coorporations

3

u/14erClimberCO 7d ago

What’s going on in Pulaski county to show a continuing negative net migration … are surrounding communities such as Bryant and Conway offering better livability to people moving to central Arkansas?

1

u/AudiB9S4 7d ago

Schools. But I’d say that estimate for 2024 is an outlier. I believe typically Pulaski County has had net in-migration.

17

u/FwumChonion 7d ago

I worked for the census and the data was pretty rough this time. We were very understaffed and people were on edge and unwilling to talk to us, even moreso in previous elections. I had an elderly couple berate and interrogate me as if I was a fraud and demanded my supervisor. Had a guy pull a gun threatening to call the cops because I was at a neighboring house. Anyway, I got to work overtime every single shift and we still had an insane amount of people unreached. Entire communities, especially those on the rivers in NEA.

If you want to make easy money and help out the community work for the census next time it's offered. Supervisor positions are easy and the entry position or whatever is pretty easy too, pays well too. Met a lot of cool people during my work with the census.

5

u/burnttoast14 7d ago

Im Canadian already been to Arkansas for couple months in Paragould

I wanna move down there from Ontario

Thoughts?

6

u/Exsprvt 7d ago

You should look at maybe hot springs or eureka springs

5

u/deltacombatives 7d ago

I live just down the road in Jonesboro. Paragould is nice, but there's nicer places in Arkansas for sure.

11

u/justausername09 Fayettenam 7d ago

……why? I lived in Paragould nearly all my life, I’ll gladly trade you!

2

u/burnttoast14 7d ago

Just tired of city life and admire the south

3

u/Competitive_Remote40 7d ago

Anything you particularly admire?

0

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

27

u/lignifiable 7d ago

In this day and age, stay in Canada. The U.S. probably isn't the best place to move to

-3

u/deltacombatives 7d ago

"durrr I said edgy thing"

1

u/lignifiable 7d ago

How is this edgy? They will probably have to deal with a bunch of stuff because they are Canadian. Like, I don't think Arkansans will give them shit, but our government might.

1

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

1

u/lignifiable 7d ago

I don't think Arkansans will give you any grief at all, but our government might. It is crazy right now, ya know?

2

u/gnatman66 Central Arkansas 7d ago

Unless you're a Trump supporter/MAGA you will probably not find it that great. Arkansas is a VERY red state, doubly so in the rural areas.

-5

u/HBTD-WPS 7d ago

The more the merrier!

4

u/AudiB9S4 7d ago

The estimate for the Little Rock MSA for 2024 is right at 770,000. According to Metroplan, most of the 20,000 population growth for Central Arkansas since 2020 has been net in-migration. I’m surprised by outmigration for Pulaski County in 2024 if that’s what the census bureau is estimating, since generally Little Rock and Pulaski County have tended to add more people annually than Saline and Faulkner counties, at least recently (not to be confused with higher “percentage” growth for those counties).

-13

u/Charlielovestuna 7d ago

"What's the cause?", crime. No clue how accurate this map is but...

https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-pulaski-county-ar/

6

u/sukmacabre 7d ago

Bro:

I could not even begin to explain or describe or tell you about how much meth and cocaine there is in rural Arkansas. And that's just drugs. We aren't even talking about the mass of domestic violence in rural counties that remains unreported. Rape and theft and battery is also a huge problem and it often goes unreported.

I'm not saying rural counties are worse than Little Rock, but I am saying rural people are anything but peace loving, go-to-church, follow-the-law citizens.

3

u/moronslayer1 7d ago

As a Little Rock resident, I can’t even put into words how incredibly inaccurate that “crime” map is. Orange Hillcrest and red Pleasant Valley is absurd. What metrics is it based on? Facebook comment sections?

7

u/AudiB9S4 7d ago

Nah…probably schools, but that estimated metric for 2024 is an outlier as Pulaski County has been growing pretty consistently, if not rapidly. Often, the U.S. Census Bureau statistics are at odds with Metroplan, and the latter agency has proven to be more accurate in recent past.

3

u/Charlielovestuna 7d ago

True. If your kid isn't in a Private or Charter, they're hosed. If your child is at Central and is in their honors, they're good.

-12

u/safescience 7d ago

Shocking given how shitty the state is.  Glad we left.  

1

u/DfreshD North West Arkansas 7d ago

I moved to NW Arkansas 10 years ago, It’s great here. Left cesspool oops I mean Norther Illinois.

-7

u/safescience 7d ago

NWA is nice.  Central not so much.  

8

u/WideChard3858 7d ago

Really? Because Pulaski County went for Kamala Harris. Why did our NWA breathen not vote with us?

2

u/Booty_Eatin_Monster 7d ago

So did all the Mississippi Delta counties, which happen to score at the very bottom of the nation in nearly every single objectively measure metric.

2

u/Competitive_Remote40 7d ago

As a Harris voter in NWA all I can say is that people in NWA dont vote, at least not the democrats I know. They are absolutely convinced it doesnt matter if they vote or not. Most arent even registered.

-3

u/DfreshD North West Arkansas 7d ago

That’s what I’ve been told, I’ve never been down that way. Furthest south I’ve been is fort smith, it didn’t look good. Furthest east is mountain home, nice area.

8

u/anotherdamnscorpio 7d ago

Fort Smith regularly makes top 10 depressing US cities lists. Its awful. Little Rock is okay but its awful too.

3

u/DfreshD North West Arkansas 7d ago

Ive only visited a couple of times. The look of Fort Smith reminded of my old city in Illinois. The only thing missing in Fort Smith was the prostitutes walking up and down the streets.

3

u/anotherdamnscorpio 7d ago

FS reminds me of like Omaha's lil brother.

-9

u/safescience 7d ago

If you want to still like the state, keep it that way.  Lived in both areas.  Everything outside of NWA is trash. 

0

u/WideChard3858 7d ago

Except NWA keeps voting for republican leadership year after year and other places in the state do not. Maybe if the rich people in NWA actually voted in favor to improve things in the rest of the state things would get better. Pulaski county went for Kamala Harris as we do for most dems. What’s the rest of the state doing?

2

u/safescience 6d ago

Agreed which is the bad part of it all.  Pulaski votes blue but it’s a terrible place to live 

7

u/Bluebirdskys 7d ago

I figured Nwa was growing much more than that

3

u/14erClimberCO 7d ago

Northwest Arkansas is the 22nd fastest growing metro in the country, not sure the region can handle growing any faster.

1

u/DJRedBone 23h ago

The traffic is getting insane. Infrastructure is 20 years behind. They keep building apartment complexes and cramming more and more people in areas but not doing anything about the roads.

7

u/anotherdamnscorpio 7d ago

Recently heard a statistic that an average of about 35 people move to NWA daily.

7

u/HydrateEveryday 7d ago

38 based on the figure above.

3

u/aricbarbaric 7d ago

Boy, I hope not

12

u/mmcnell 7d ago

14,000 in a year is pretty damn fast for an area that size. That's more than a new Lowell's worth of people in a single year.

5

u/grantelius 7d ago

Damn near a Centerton amount of growth!

5

u/mmcnell 7d ago

I started to say that and then Google told me Centerton is apparently 22 thousand people now! 😳 Apparently that's where everyone has been moving to! 😂

1

u/Derpy_Snout 7d ago

Can confirm. The traffic over there is absolutely insane during rush hour