Booming

Planned and managed growth of Fayetteville was the No. 1 goal in a citizen survey conducted by the city. Read Story

It shouldn't be a surprise. NW Arkansas is exploding and the residents are feeling its effect. People often complain about the congested streets and roads, most of which were not built to take a large volume of traffic. The explosive expansion is particularly dangerous to the newly developed areas. They do not have adequate fire and police coverage. The city is not building fire stations fast enough nor are they hiring enough police and fireman to cover the new developments. I was discussing this with a developer and I asked him why couldn't growth be slowed until the city's infrastructure caught up. The answer, money. Developers are in it for the money. They aren't particular concerned about traffic, police or fireman.

There might be one thing that might slow growth in Fayetteville. Water. It appears that growth has outpaced the ability to upgrade water lines and Washington County faces a water shortage in 10-15 years. Read

The leadership of Fayetteville are going to have to be creative about solving this problem. Not only do they have to resolve our current problems but start anticipating what's going to be needed within the next 25 to 50 years.