A Little Love for Little Rock (Editorial)

Downtown Little Rock (Shutterstock)

While the growth of northwest Arkansas has deservedly received a lot of attention, the Little Rock metropolitan area hasn’t been doing so badly either.

As the Little Rock Regional Chamber noted last month, the Little Rock area ranked second among neighboring state capital cities and peer regional markets in percentage growth of gross domestic product during the last five years. GDP growth in the Little Rock area totaled 25.92% during the period, compared with 33.12% for Nashville, Tennessee, which ranked No. 1.

There’s a caveat to this good news, however. It’s not adjusted for inflation, which was high during several of the previous five years. “Nevertheless, we have experienced real economic growth over that five-year period and that translates into higher incomes and higher employment,” economist Michael Pakko said.

Just last week, Conveyor Technology of North Little Rock dedicated a $33 million manufacturing center expected to create 100 jobs. A plan by Amazon to build a $151 million warehouse at the Port of Little Rock, as reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is another example of economic development in the area.

Companies will come and they will go, but for now, the trend is in the right direction.