Little Rock, Arkansas

[davidknmo]

Photos from another road trip I took back in March. Little Rock is a small city but certainly has it's charm.

Pinnacle Mountain State Park:
















































Bentonville, AR:





Grand Falls, Joplin, MO:

[photoLith]

When I lived in Russellville for college for four years, I used to go to Little Rock to keep my sanity. I love that little city, it reminds me of a mini version of Austin. Haven't been there for about 5 years. Looks like the riverfront area near the Clinton Library has built up a little more. The inside of the capitol building is gorgeous, did you go inside of it? And North Little Rock was gentrifying when I lived in Arkansas, its probably pretty nice now, at least the area right across the river. Conway is also a cool town worth a visit and is only about 3o minutes from Little Rock.

[The North One]

Glad to see Little Rock is more than just a single high-school, contrary to the history books.

Great photos, looks very pretty.

[AviationGuy]

I knew that Hot Springs has semi-mountainous areas, but didn't know that Little Rock does as well.

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures! I heard Little Rock is a pretty decent city. It seems that a main reason it isn't on anyone's radar around the country is simply the stigma attached to Arkansas' reputation as a backwater state.

[isaidso]

Wasn't the lead character in South Pacific from Little Rock?

[photoLith]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Nice pictures! I heard Little Rock is a pretty decent city. It seems that a main reason it isn't on anyone's radar around the country is simply the stigma attached to Arkansas' reputation as a backwater state.

Some of the most liberal little towns I've ever been in were in Arkansas. Southern states like Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia etc might be on the whole super redneck and idiotic but within those states are super extreme liberal towns where the progressive people in those states flock to to live. Examples in Arkansas are neighborhoods in Little Rock, Fayetteville, Eureka Springs, and Conway to some extent. And then in Arkansas you also have the river rat culture, which is super liberal with a mix of blue grass music, basically hippies wearing tye die rafting, canoeing, kayaking on the Buffalo River and partake in bluegrass etc music festivals and smoke Shit loads of weed.

Arkansas is a super weird state. You have the rednecks of central and western Arkansas with a mix of progressive college towns scattered about with many diesel spewing jacked up trucks waving Confederate Flags and the smell of Tyson Chicken farms wafting through the air. The West Central part of the state is basically West Virginia Appalachia. Southwestern Arkansas, with its lightly rolling countryside and many towns largely comprised of Latino immigrants and possibly the Fouke Monster lurking about the swamps near Texarkana. Then eastern Arkansas, which is flat and largely full of depopulated majority black towns with a mix of BB King, Black Oak Arkansas and Gospel Music baked altogether and set to dry in the hot summer sun.

[LMich]

I know quite a bit about the state, and it's funny because Little Rock probably ranks in the bottom of my favorite places in the state. I mean, as the biggest city in the state it's going to have some amenities some of the other cities in the state don't. But, other than that, it feels very, very generic...and, yes, backwater. A city that should feel like a Des Moines or some other pleasant smaller capital city feels very sleepy. It also has a crazy-high level of violent street crime for a metro so small.

As someone who grew up in a small state capital, it just always seemed to me that it hasn't lived up to its potential. And, I largely chalk this up to the political culture of the state. You move Little Rock a few states north, and it would probably be a super pleasant, vibrant place. To be frank, Arkansas doesn't seem to care about Little Rock. I find that even in a lot of other culturally conservative states that the politicians at least try to make their capital city a focus for the state.