Northwest Arkansas
Initial installment on series on the best sections of North America in which to pursue a rural lifestyle, including population, jobs and crime, real estate and taxes, education and health.
September/October 1986
By the Mother Earth News editors
Issue #101 - September/October 1986
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CREAM OF THE COUNTRY
A great plateau once covered some 60,000 square miles of northern Arkansas, a large section of southern and central Missouri, and small bits of Oklahoma and Kansas. Over millions of years, however, that flat-topped mountain has eroded to produce the limestone bluffs, mountainous woodlands, sweeping meadows, trout streams, lakes, and rivers that we call the Ozarks. While the lover of rural life can find beauty and tranquility in abundance throughout this region, we selected four counties in extreme northwest Arkansas (Washington, Benton, Carroll, and Madison) because of the diversity of lifestyles — from urban to remote rural — that can be found within an area some 55 miles long and 75 miles wide.
U.S. Highways 71 and 62 intersect at Fayetteville, the area's largest city, which is 192 miles from Little Rock and 126 miles from Tulsa. Its airport offers daily flights to Dallas/Ft. Worth, Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Tulsa, and Little Rock.
Southern portions of Washington and Madison Counties are covered by the huge Ozark National Forest, another small section of which can be found on the border between Washington and Benton. In the north, manmade Beaver Lake, which looks from the air like a great flying dragon, stretches into Washington, Benton, and Carroll Counties. The lake is popular with campers, boaters, and fishing enthusiasts.
All, however, is not a rural paradise. Along U.S. 71, strip-building worthy of Los Angeles borders almost the entire straight line from Fayetteville north through Springdale to Rogers. "The Corridor," as this section is called by the locals, may soon evolve into Arkansas's first megalopolis. However, go a mile or so in either direction off this route, and you're right back in a rural setting.
Population, Jobs, and Crime
When it comes to the point of trying to choose your own special spot within these four vastly different counties, amenities and economics will probably play a big role.
Washington County, with its two urban centers, Fayetteville (36,680) and Springdale (23,458), has a total population of 100,494, or 105.7 people per square mile. In March 1986, there were 53,225 people in the work force with unemployment running at 4.4%, as compared to a national average of 7.3%. By far the biggest employer is the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, which accounts for some 4,000 jobs and also helps to make the town the cultural center of the area. Agriculture (primarily fruit, poultry, and livestock) and diversified manufacturing (including a big Campbell's Soup operation and industries that produce printed forms, copper tubing connections, electronic organs, industrial tools, filter media, truck bodies, Mexican food products, steel communication towers, dairy products, electrical equipment, clothing, and wood products) occupy another large group of workers, but, according to March 1986 figures, the average wage for manufacturing workers in Washington County is $6.70 per hour, as compared to $7.31 per hour for Arkansas and $9.88 an hour for the U.S. as a whole. The average annual salary is $13,357 compared to $14,973 for Arkansas and a national average of $18,335.
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