If culture is defined by fine arts, theaters, murals, sculpture, diversity, artwork, libraries, musical venues, education, athletics and abundant outdoor recreation, the 525,000 residents of Northwest Arkansas today are blessed with more of it than most Americans enjoy.Â
And the choices continue to swell each year with a diverse region that welcomes just more than 18 arrivals a day.
In fact, at last count, this scenic corner of America with six Fortune 500 companies to fuel its economy and cultural influences, is the fastest-growing region in Arkansas and the 22nd nationwide.
The ballooning population, much of which arrived over the past decade to take pre-COVID advantage of a booming job market and resulting cultural amenities, is largely a diverse conglomeration of independent minds and attitudes.
The more liberal atmosphere of Fayetteville quickly transitions to predictably conservative as one travels northward along Interstate 49 into rapidly growing Benton County and cities such as Springdale, Lowell, Rogers, Bentonville and the retirement village of Bella Vista.
The attributes and tastes of thousands annually flowing into the region certainly spur the increase of cultural influences in Northwest Arkansas, whose population is expected to reach more than a million by 2045.Â
In recent years, this corridor of communities has repeatedly ranked near the top nationally in several categories. Those include America’s best places to live and top-rated secondary- and higher-education systems as well as an abundance of creative minds, popular trail systems, bicycling, fishing, hiking, faith-based centers and other categories that mesh to generate the culture of this region.
In fact, it’s doubtful there’s anything those in search of creative outlets amid these Boston Mountains can’t find to enrich their lives.
And that’s not difficult to understand when you realize the average age of Fayetteville residents edges just over 27, thanks in large measure to the flagship University of Arkansas perched on the hill overlooking the historic downtown. By comparison, the average age in Washington County is 31 and in Benton County, 35.
Enormous and sustained contributions to the arts from several major benefactors, foremost among them Alice Walton of Walmart progeny and her family, have fueled wide-ranging cultural growth and the attraction of creative talent to the region.Â
In fact, other supportive corporations and families including the Tysons, Wingates, Proctor and Gamble, Willard and Pat Walker, J.B. Hunt, General Mills, the Hershey Company, Kimberly-Clark and others all freely donate toward supporting NWA’s cultural rise.Â
They’ve played key roles in helping create national cultural attractions such as Walton’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art with an $800 million endowment and the new, Walton-sponsored Momentary venue, which blends contemporary visual, performing and culinary arts into a communal space. And the popular Walton Performing Arts Center in Fayetteville was established early on in 1992 to serve as the cultural center for the Northwest Arkansas area. Â
The Walmart AMP outdoor entertainment and music venue in Rogers opened in 2005, the Arts Center of the Ozarks in Springdale was founded in 1967 and the 25-year-old faith-centered education and recreational Jones Center for Families in Springdale and others have become cultural draws across the region too numerous to list.Â
Citizens have willingly joined in as NWA cities have financed through bond issues and local advertising and promotion commissions to improve quality of life. Every city has cultural venues and performances as well as public murals and organized groups of artists. In Fayetteville during 2013, the city bonded $10 million in revenue of which approximately $6 million went to the Walton Arts Center to support a $23 million dollar expansion/renovation. The remainder went to a regional park with an outdoor performance venue thanks to a clear majority vote of citizens.Â
This past year, Fayetteville bonded $31 million to develop and construct a 12-acre Cultural Arts Corridor in the heart of the city; citizens also approved a $26.5-million bond issue to finance the city’s nationally recognized, 80,000-square foot library addition with a 700-seat theater. It’s been said that in NWA, culture resides at the center of the intersection where quality of life meets quality of growth.Â
Of course, no self-respecting glimpse at the culture of Northwest Arkansas would be complete without including the Arkansas Razorbacks and how they unite the region’s residents from every faith, economic status and political persuasion in a common cause.
Guiding hands have been behind such phenomenal growth with each step.Â
For example, the apolitical Northwest Arkansas Council certainly is, and has been, a driving force behind such explosive development and cultural growth. The council’s partners include the chambers of commerce in Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville and Siloam Springs. Â
History shows this body of volunteers was formed by an unelected group of business leaders uniting in a common purpose that hasn’t changed. The council’s strategic regional plan purposefully develops actions that achieve increasing diversity and inclusion.
For instance, its so-called Blue Zone Program promotes healthier living largely through health care as an economic-development driver including more graduate-medical education across NWA in two years, a research institute before five years and a four-year medical school within seven years.
Those changes would double the amount of research and development expenditures while further unleashing the economic power of the arts, all while the region steadily becomes known as an internationally renowned cycling destination.
Some might compare NWA’s rapid development and growth in Central Arkansas as such: two brothers, one older and historically developed, the younger sibling shooting up like a fertilized sunflower reaching for the sun.
The structure, population and culture of Northwest Arkansas left its launching pad in the mid-1990s with completion of what is now known as Interstate 49 that connected Interstate 30 to the south with the northern connection through Missouri.
Then Drake Field in Fayetteville was replaced as the region’s major airport with the new Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport created out of former farm fields just west of Springdale. With these additions, the world opened wide to regional businesses, education and accompanying additions of arts, education and entertainment.
Steve Clark, Fayetteville’s Chamber of Commerce director (and former Arkansas Attorney General), has had a unique bird’s eye view of all the change. “There’s absolutely no question the presence of Walmart, the Fortune 500’s number one U.S. corporation, affects culture throughout Northwest Arkansas.
“Its contributions along with Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest protein-producing company, and one of its largest transportation organizations, have been instrumental with others in shaping the culture.”Â
The University of Arkansas, now among the country’s top 100 research institutions of higher education, has a dramatically positive effect on the culture. Clark also noted the presence of more Arkansans on the Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans along with the influence of the UA’s Arkansas Research and Technology Park, which contributes greatly to Fayetteville producing more U.S. patents than any other Arkansas community.  Â
A native of Leachville, Clark was hired as Fayetteville’s chamber director in 2008. After years as the state’s AG living in Little Rock before moving to Fayetteville, Clark has a particularly unique insight to credibly comment on the region’s expanding culture. Â
He explained how more than half of Arkansas’ population growth over the past decade has come in Benton and Washington counties as has more than half of all new jobs created in Arkansas this past decade.
“Benton and Washington are the fastest-growing Arkansas counties,” Clark said. “Between 2010 and 2019, this metro area increased by 21.5 percent or 94,783 people.”Â
Between 2019 and 2029, Arkansas is expected to grow in population by an average of 2 percent while the NWA metro is projected to swell even more. From 2008-2018, NWA grew new jobs above the state average of 2 percent while Faulkner, Lonoke, Saline and Grant in the state’s Central metro region did the same, he noted.Â
 Clark added that more than half of those living in Benton and Washington counties today were not born in Arkansas, which only contributes to the myriad diversities that incorporate a blend of Hispanic, Marshallese, Middle Eastern, African-American and Anglo-American cultures and faiths living across Northwest Arkansas in 2020.Â
The website Churchfinders shows religion also plays a fundamental role in enriching NWA’s culture through 309 churches, three synagogues and two mosques dotting the landscape from Fayetteville to Bella Vista including Siloam Springs.
Clark and many leaders across Northwest Arkansas acknowledge the value added by both NWA and Central Arkansas, thriving 193 interstate miles, to the state’s family.
“We are one Arkansas,” he said. “The fact there are cultural and economic differences between metropolitan regions of our state is a strength, not a weakness.” Â