The Northest Arkansas Council Competitive Assessment report was released yesterday by Market Street Services in Atlanta, Georgia.According to the results, the top five greatest challenges to attracting and retaining residents in Northwest Arkansas in descending order are:
Creating more quality jobs; transportation and infrastructure; cost of living and doing business; quality development and planning; and Pre-K-12 capacity, financing, and quality.
For the most part, the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metro is lumped together.
In a few cases, Springdale was separated from the group. For example, more than one-third of Springdale's school population is classified as an English Language Learner (ELL) which may or may not be the reason Springdale was ranked the lowest performing school district in 2008. Although Springdale is listed as having the lowest graduation rate of the region, it is still several points above the statewide average.
The report states "compared to best-practice regions for economic development, Northwest Arkansas has comparatively limited resources for workforce development. Furthermore, available workforce services for incumbent workers and existing or prospective businesses are not featured prominently on any of the regional chamber of commerce websites and the regional WIA website contains only limited information and links to partner websites."
The complete report here.