Ep. 22 - Part 2 - Building a Vibrant Northwest Arkansas with Nelson Peacock
Jul 11, 2024
USL Arkansas
Curious about the future of Northwest Arkansas and how it's being shaped by key players in the region? Join us as we sit down with Nelson Peacock, the president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council. Nelson shares his insights on the council's data-driven strategies, the influence of local giants like Walmart, Tyson, JB Hunt, and the University of Arkansas, and the importance of learning from other regions. Discover how these efforts are fueling economic growth, attracting top talent, and ensuring that Northwest Arkansas continues to be a top-tier place to live and work. Nelson also highlights the significance of tackling present-day challenges, such as maintaining affordable housing, to preserve the region's exceptional quality of life.
In the second part of our discussion, we tackle the critical shortage of medical residencies and its ripple effect on local healthcare. We explore the delicate balance between development and preserving community character, emphasizing the need for essential workers to live close to their jobs. Shifting gears, we dive into the burgeoning world of professional soccer in Northwest Arkansas. Learn about our hopes for the local soccer club and its potential to engage the community, attract new talent, and foster a vibrant local culture. This episode promises valuable insights into building a thriving, inclusive community through strategic development and a shared love for soccer.
Curious about the future of Northwest Arkansas and how it's being shaped by key players in the region? Join us as we sit down with Nelson Peacock, the president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council. Nelson shares his insights on the council's data-driven strategies, the influence of local giants like Walmart, Tyson, JB Hunt, and the University of Arkansas, and the importance of learning from other regions. Discover how these efforts are fueling economic growth, attracting top talent, and ensuring that Northwest Arkansas continues to be a top-tier place to live and work. Nelson also highlights the significance of tackling present-day challenges, such as maintaining affordable housing, to preserve the region's exceptional quality of life.
In the second part of our discussion, we tackle the critical shortage of medical residencies and its ripple effect on local healthcare. We explore the delicate balance between development and preserving community character, emphasizing the need for essential workers to live close to their jobs. Shifting gears, we dive into the burgeoning world of professional soccer in Northwest Arkansas. Learn about our hopes for the local soccer club and its potential to engage the community, attract new talent, and foster a vibrant local culture. This episode promises valuable insights into building a thriving, inclusive community through strategic development and a shared love for soccer.
Speaker 1:
pitch to pro is the official podcast of usl arkansas. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, northwest arkansas. This is a journey we want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way. Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club. Pitch to Pro Podcast is proudly sponsored by PodcastVideoscom. Podcastvideoscom is Northwest Arkansas' premier podcast recording studio, equipped with industry-leading equipment. The recording studio and services save you time, money and hassle. They are dedicated to helping you create, record and publish high-quality podcasts for your audience. Be sure to check them out today at podcastvideoscom. Hey everybody and welcome back to the Pitch to Pro podcast. I am your host, wes Harris, managing Director for USL Arkansas, northwest Arkansas's professional soccer club playing in the United Soccer League.
Speaker 1:
Welcome back for part two of our discussion here with Mr Nelson Peacock. He is the president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council. Nelson, welcome back and thanks again for joining us today. Just a real quick recap for those that might be joining us kind of midway through the conversation. First of all, go back and check the last episode to get a good recap and really understand, because we had a great discussion about Nelson, his background in the NWA council, but we talked about that.
Speaker 1:
What is the council, how you guys uh came to the organization and how does it, how did it start? And its founders and what was their goals? Uh, and what do they do? What do you guys do for the area? And we talked about some of the challenges that NWA is facing as we stand here today. Uh, but for the next part of our discussion, I'd love to kind of turn our focus towards the future, which is a lot of what you guys do, and I think it's such an interesting and incredible skillset to be able to look that far into the future, knowing that things are going to change, but needing to make decisions based on the best available data that you have available today and gaining insights from others different markets, different sources, different leaders and having to make decisions that you know are going to impact our future as a whole region. Talk a little bit about that and that could be a lot of pressure on an organization and folks that are helping make those decisions.
Speaker 2:
Well, fortunately for us, we're a nonprofit and we make recommendations.
Speaker 2:
And other people may have to make the hard decisions.
Speaker 2:
But what we do is we mentioned earlier we do a lot of data, we do a lot of looking at other regions that have kind of faced these challenges before us, and we have a lot of information from our anchor members.
Speaker 2:
So the large companies Walmart, tyson, jb Hunt and the university sit on our executive committee and so we are really responsive to them when they think about what is the kind of region that's going to help their company grow, attract talent, retain talent, and so we look at a lot of the things that we do through that lens. So, whether we're focused on health care and getting more access to health care here, higher quality health care, it's a lens around economic development, talent attraction and all those types of things. So everything we do kind of has a little bit of that lens towards it, and so that's really what helps us keep our focus, because what is it going to look like, what makes you want to stay here, raise your family here, continue to grow here, and that's economic prosperity things to do, which we'll be, talking about, yeah, and then a high and a high quality of life.
Speaker 2:
So they all kind of work together.
Speaker 1:
And I think that's a great perspective for anybody that is feels that kind of pressure in either it's everyday life or job. Um, if, if you have that anchor, if you have that lens through which everything needs to ladder back up to uh and pass the red face or the sniff test, um, and you're trying to do the right thing for the right reasons, that all that are up there, it's you know, sure, sure, hindsight's always 20-20. Things are never going to be a perfect decision, you know five years away. But in terms of, can you look back at the process and feel really good about you know how you arrived at that decision and where you wanted to go? I think that that's a great perspective to have too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Well, and I tell you you know what has been happening so far has been working. Obviously, one of the fastest growing regions in the country have been for a long time, projected to be up to a million people, as we talked about and also always one of the highest quality of life locations I think number five in the last US News and World Report. We've been in the top 10 for about 15 years now, and so I think that speaks to a lot of the work that's gone on before I got here and, hopefully, where we can keep ourselves, and that has all to do with the economy and the equality of life which all of those kind of it's like a flywheel they keep building on themselves, they keep iterating on themselves and building, they feed each other.
Speaker 1:
That's right and that's a great point too. I think, you know there's some really good litmus tests out there that say how are we doing? Are we, you know? Do we need to change tack? Do we need to change course or think about things differently?
Speaker 2:
Well, if you look at this one report, Austin Texas, when I moved here, was number one. It is like it fell to like number 30 because of housing prices. Yeah, Because of housing prices, yeah. So when we look at, how do we keep ourselves in the top? You know that that's obviously a key factor for us to look at and that's why we've stood up a new housing program.
Speaker 1:
And you started to getting into it there. So let's talk a little bit about where is Northwest Arkansas headed. What does that look like? What are some of the strategic vision tenets, if you will for the region as we look ahead?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So you know, every city kind of has their own strategy of what they want to be, what they want to do. Regionally, as I said, you know, projecting up to a million people. Right now we have only one community that is above 100,000 people. That's Fayetteville, just past that and it's the second largest city in the state, surprisingly to me. Um, but over the next 20 years, probably in the next 10, we'll all four. We'll have, you know, four cities that are over a hundred thousand. So all of that growth is going to continue, uh, in those communities.
Speaker 2:
But when you look out to the west, yeah, all those communities are going to double in size and so they've got to figure out what they want to be.
Speaker 2:
What does their future want to be?
Speaker 2:
Can we make smart decisions without having large developers kind of dictate how they're going to grow? So that is a lot of what we're going to be doing and making sure that we grow the right way. And if you're a small town now and you want to keep that small town, feel, yeah, like you're going to have to get the right structures in place to protect what you want to preserve and especially you know we did a survey about two months ago, basically a quality of life survey, but people valued their green space and outdoor activity in northwest Arkansas highest, and so if we don't manage growth in the right way, we're going to lose a lot of the green space that people love, and so that factors a lot into how we try to convince leaders to make the smart decisions for their community, for their residents going forward. But it's going to be a lot of growth, a lot of change, a lot of demographic change as well. How do we continue to build a cohesive region where everyone works together? I think it'll be harder as we get bigger.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I think you know you just hit on kind of two things that we heard over and over again in our listening campaign surveys in person. You know, what do you love about nboa? I love the quality of life and I love my green space. Yeah, I love nature. I love the incredible natural beauty that's here, and everybody came back to that and then it was yes, I love the potential, but I don't want to lose the feeling of the magic that that is nboa today, and so how do you preserve that? So I think that that's you know. We, we have the right people in the room, so to speak, um and again, with the light, with the right lenses and the. And what are we trying to achieve as we grow?
Speaker 2:
um, I think everybody not maybe not everybody, but the majority of people are excited about the wealth and the potential and every community kind of has their own vision of what they're going to be. Springdale's different than rogers, and rogers is different than ben Benville. And Fayetteville, with the university, is going to be its own unique thing, absolutely, you know in perpetuity, I guess until there's not 38,000, you know 18 to 23 year olds in that town.
Speaker 2:
So so I you know. I think it adds a vibrancy that anyone you can get what you want and be right here and as they grow together, let's make that a strength, not a weakness. I love that.
Speaker 1:
What are some roadblocks of us getting to the vision that you guys have for us at A Million People? What are some things in our way?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think it's the urgency of making decisions now, when things seem to be going pretty well. Do you really need to rock the boat? Yeah, I think that's an interesting point. Yeah, and I think these large infrastructure projects back when a lot of other cities were growing, back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, the federal dollars flowing through the highway programs and others were far and away outsized. They are now.
Speaker 2:
So we've got to do that, and another example of that we are significantly short on medical residencies. A lot of people don't think about this, but a medical resident, the chances of that resident staying to practice is about 70% Wow. And because we have grown, in 96, they capped the number of residencies at those population levels. So we've done all of our growth since 96. So we are about 200 below the national average Wow. Which makes it hard for our hospitals to keep up in recruiting doctors, and so we've had to focus on that.
Speaker 2:
We were able to get the state to pass some laws to help us add 100 residents because of our population growth, but those kinds of things the federal government subsidized all of that for cities that were growing in the 40s, 50s, 60s. We don't have that luxury, and that's with infrastructure as well. So we've got to figure out how we fund these new projects. We also have a situation where we represent all the population growth in the state of Arkansas. Basically, little Rock has a little bit, johnsboro has a little bit. Other parts are shrinking, unfortunately. I grew up in a place that was shrinking. But how do we make sure that the state investment keeps things humming along here to be that economic engine so that the state can ultimately invest in those other places and hopefully get them going?
Speaker 1:
again as well. That's a great, great point. So I think we touched on this a little bit. But in your mind, how do we build and grow but not lose sight of who we are as a community and what we love about it today?
Speaker 2:
I think we have to build. The decisions we make now are going to be what this place looks like in 20 years. So I think we have to think about we talk a lot about the castle character of our communities and preserving that, but the character is not the buildings. No, the character is the people. Yes, so how can we build so that people can live in their communities? That's the question. It's not to me.
Speaker 2:
Rogers doesn't change its character if it builds eight-story buildings versus three. It's. Can we have the people that live there, that are chefs and waiters and teachers and firefighters, all those folks, if they have to move somewhere else and drive in to perform those same jobs? And we've lost something along the way? This is what's happened in metro areas across the country. Yes, you saw it in DC. It was in California. When I was there, you know, I had people that worked for me that commuted two hours Yep Each way, every day. It's nuts. So they could afford to live. And so we have to take a sense of urgency about this thing or we're going to lose that, and that's because the people can't live in and around the downtowns or the schools.
Speaker 1:
That's such a good point, and I think, growing up and it's gotten worse as I've gotten older, but growing up that that was just such a oh, that's normal. Normal, yeah, and it's just because those markets had already been there for, you know, decades. That's right to a place where you're talking about, where we want to avoid.
Speaker 2:
That's right, um so you think about the perspective of someone that just moved here. They think the traffic is this is no brainer, it's easy, like yeah, but if you've lived here for 20 years you think it's getting horrible. 100 so%. So you know, it's just perspective. It is we have to preserve. We have to do our best to preserve what makes us special right now. I love that, yeah. So how do you think pro soccer fits into the mix? Well, I tell you what. As everyone knows, your listeners know, soccer is growing by leaps and bounds. Yes, it is. Yeah, we were just in europe and saw. We were in barcelona when the women won and we just happened to go by the parade in the middle of the city and I mean it was just packed what an experience.
Speaker 1:
We didn't know what really was going on.
Speaker 2:
That's so cool, but it was like it was like the razorbacks winning the national championship three years in a row or something right, right, um.
Speaker 2:
But really I think in a broader context, this is a place, as I mentioned, where we're trying to attract talent. There has to be reasons to come here, to stay here, and I think professional soccer will just add to that mix of things to do when you're not working Absolutely. And I believe that there's a different set of people coming here. Like I said, 60 of the people are not from here. You've got a different demographic that's growing up here right now where soccer is probably paramount, uh, to them, and this is just going to help create that stickiness for them to stay. You know it's going to help attract new people as we move in. I say it'll be an economic boon to the city where you guys are located and really attract a lot of people. Every game that you have and then also, I think what you're planning on with your skills academies and your early engagement with people will just help create a better citizen here. I love that.
Speaker 1:
And all things that we aspire to bring and do. What do you hope? So that's what you know. How do we fit in? What do you hope this club does for this community?
Speaker 2:
Well, I have no doubt you're going to be successful. I hope you continue to grow, I hope you pack your stadium all the time and I really hope that it becomes kind of a cultural thing where the entire community can get behind it. Um, obviously winning will help with that, but, but really that's what I I hope, and I hope that there's a focus on this. I could see you know people um hopefully getting the right infrastructure in place where people are biking up to the games and, you know, staying there for a while and really getting a window, especially for the people that have lived here for a long time, that American football is their football really grow to love and appreciate a new sport that's obviously the biggest in the world.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think this is going to be something that soccer is the world's game. Yeah, I think this is going to be something that soccer is the world's game and I think you know, hopefully, what you shared, you would agree. I think that this is going to be something that unites us as a community.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think that's right. I think you know what the council does in many ways is we try to make sure that Fayetteville and Bentonville, or you know, in Springdale and Rogers, everyone is working together towards what is important for the entire region. That's been the genesis of the council, that any one city can't do it on its own, and so I think if this soccer club can do that, can unite everyone where they're coming from, all over the region to support one team, I think you will have achieved a lot.
Speaker 1:
I hope so, and that's what we're trying to do, and use the power of the beautiful game to help bring people together and build community. So I appreciate that and we look forward to continuing to do that. Nelson, thank you so much for joining us and shedding light on the special journey that we're on together as a community here in Northwest Arkansas. I think I said it before, but this is just a lightning in a bottle type of moment in time. I know it spans decades, but it really is that unicorn and people feel that when they come here for the first time and then that's why they want to stay.
Speaker 1:
So thank you to you and your team for help leading the charge and getting us there together. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and be sure to tune in for the next episode of pitch to pro. Till next time, northwest Arkansas cheers. Thank you.
