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[chittlins]

Some figures about region:

Fort Smith - NWA (Benton, Washington, Madison, Crawford, Franklin, Sebastian, AR; McDonald, MO; Sequoyah, LeFlore, OK) - 784,000

Springfield - Branson (Greene, Dallas, Polk, Webster, Christian, Stone, Taney, MO) - 527,000
Shreveport - Texarkana (Caddo, Bossier, Webster, LA; Bowie, TX; Miller, AR) - 565,000
Jackson - Vicksburg (Hinds, Warren, Madison, Simpson, Rankin, Copiah, MS) - 594,000
Wichita - Hutchinson (Sedgwick, Harvey, Sumner, Butler, Cowley, Reno, KS) - 725,000
Des Moines - Ames (Polk, Dallas, Warren, Guthrie, Madison, Story, Boone, Jasper, Marion, IA) - 773,000

[Junior]

Here are a few more NWA geeky stats:

Walmart home office (world's largest retailer) Bentonville, AR
J.B. Hunt home office (Big trucking firm) Lowell, AR
Tyson home office (Largest US, maybe world's meat producer) Fayetteville, AR
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Also in the area: Home of the former Jones Trucking at Springdale
                        Hundreds of vendor offices for Walmart support (Rubbermaid, French Foods, Anheiser Busch, Coke, PepsiCo, many more)
                       

Strongest economy in Arkansas, second only in population to Little Rock, projected to pass Little Rock in population soon, next few years.

I gotta tell ya, rush hour on I-540 is madness. We need another interstate on the east side of all these towns from Fayetteville north to Bella Vista. Some improvements are being made, but somebody needs to kick it into high gear. I get on 540 in the mornings about 7-730am, and I'm going between zero and 40mph for a long stretch between Springdale and Rogers. Traffic is madness!

Seems like our retail and eating establishment choices are nearly endless. That's the good part. When my wife and I lived in a small Arkansas town we could go to Branson and it was so exciting because we had four malls and lots of eating joints to choose from, but now that we live in NW Arkansas City, we got pretty much all of it here, so when we go to Branson, it's the local establishments like SDC, Sh Hills, Titanic, Wax Museum, Bass Pro, theaters, flea markets, local eateries, that draw us. We now have Cabella's so Bass Pro ain't that big of a deal anymore. Can't find a Dicks 5 and 10 down here, or a Lambert's Café, or a Starvin' Marvin's, and some of the local/regional Branson flavor, so we will continue to go back to Branson for a long time to come.

[chittlins]

Arkansas has 6 Fortune 500 companies and under 3 million in total pop for the state.

[Swoosh]

and 5 last names