Little Rock

I should try and give you some idea of what Little Rock is like, as much as I can. It's a bit more than 500,000 people for the Greater Little Rock area - roughly the same as Greater Wellington (i.e. Wellington, the Hutt, and the Gold coast area).

Like Gaul*, it's divided into three, no four parts: the city centre, West Little Rock, North Little Rock, and South Little Rock - east LR doesn't really exist as it's just a river port plus some industrial parks, trailing off into rice paddies & commercial fish ponds . The whole city is quite hilly by European standards (nothing like as hilly as Wellington, but far from flat, too): not big hills, but a lot of (200-300 foot) ridges, on both sides of the river.

The city centre feels pretty gutless and empty - literally, not as a metaphor for courage. There are half a dozen highrises: I work on the 8th floor of the largest (by far), a 46-story behemoth, I would guess none of the others rise more than 20 or 25 stories. The rest of it consists of the Capitol (a miniature imitation of the DC Capitol), and a lot of 2/3 story commercial buildings. What makes it feel gutless is the almost total absence of shops, of any sort. There are a few food shops & takeaway places, to feed all the office-dwellers and other denizens of these mysterious buildings - most are unlabelled, or at best bearing obscure modest signage giving little or no hint of purpose.

Other than that, there are a lot - and I mean a ton - of empty shop slots: this is not due to the recent downturn, most of them have been like this since before we arrived, and many for quite a few years, judging from the neglect. There are also a few bars, but those are scattered around the periphery of the city proper: oh, and there's the River Market (positioned beside the Arkansas River, open on Saturdays), which has a couple of small attached streets of restaurants and bars, which I think supports a fairly peppy nightlife in the evenings (not being drinkers, we haven't really investigated).

It certainly feels weird, driving through the city area in the weekends - except near the River Market, it feels very much like driving through Wellington at 8 a.m. on Christmas morning - empty to a fare-thee-well, echoing streets, whispering pavements.

West Little Rock is where we live: the area extending west, but south of the Arkansas river. The piece of it closest to the city centre is full of old houses of great character (but usually small), dating from 80 or more years ago I would guess: then bit next to the river (on a high ridge) is a series of suburbs where the prices are sky-high (well, by local standards), with a lot of pseudo-mansions - and real ones - and quite a number of interesting, quirky boutiques & small shopping centres, not to mention my favourite cafe.

After that, the West trails off into an apparently endless series of middle-class, moderate suburbs, 3 or 4 bedroom bungalows & split-levels, usually brick, on polite wellscrubbed sections, interspersed with shopping strips (what they call strip-malls) full of chain-shops, looking more or less identical. Oh, and not a sidewalk or pavement to be seen - the developers seemed to deem it an unnecessary expense sometime in the 60s, so they simply don't exist: if you want to walk along, you have to walk on the verge of peoples' lawns. Not exactly characterful, but pleasant and anodyne. Yes, this is us, at the moment :)

Oh, and I should mention, you are not permitted a fence on the front of your property that exceeds waist height (the rear yard can have a privacy fence up to 7' tall, and many do).

Separating WLR from South Little Rock is a motorway (the I630), which forms a fairly solid demarcation. SLR is still suburbs, but generally poorer - more timber construction, often smaller sections, less fencing (and most of that chain-link). Interspersed amongh those are pockets of real, well, poverty and neglect, of a quite shocking level - many houses burnt out, or boarded up, or just quarantined behind police-tape, and most of the rest looking semi-deserted and neglected. If there's a pattern to them, I haven't detected it - I expect it is dictated by some underlying pattern of resources, but I guess you'd have to live there for quite a while to become aware of it.

More alarmingly, from what little I've observed in the last 12 months, those pockets of, well, obviously drug-dealers & users, seem to migrate around SLR, which must make the rest of the inhabitants feel a bit desperate: like waiting for a tornado to destroy your neighbourhood property values, without having even a shelter to hide in.

SLR seems (to a very casual observation) to be primarily non-white: but don't get me wrong, I wouldn't say there is segregation in housing, it's much more just an effect of class, and as always in America, non-whites are shoved down the economic ladder. I haven't seen any signs of overt racism in the housing market, unless I'm missing the nod&awink signals - which is quite possible of course.

The Arkansas river itself is quite substantial - I would guess about twice the width of the Hutt, and deeper& stronger: it's used quite a lot for barge traffic, as it feeds into the Father of Waters, and reaches up into the Plains quite a distance.

North Little Rock is across the Arkansas River from the city centre, and extends up the bank opposite WLR. It is more or less the lower middle-class & working class area: there's a very noticeable rise in the presence of gunracks on trucks, not to mention Confederate flags, beer emblems and faded McCain/Palin stickers. I did contemplate renting here at first, as prices are obviously cheaper, but the longer commute times, and the overall feeling of, well, conservativism (and the enormous, staggering number of gigantic, lavish, over the top expensive churches), really deterred both of us.

Well, not sure that really gives you a good idea of what it's like here, but so it goes.





*Asterix the Gaul joke :)