ADG: The 2010 census for Arkansas is out. The state gained population overall (+9.1 percent), but the trends of the past few years persist. The northwest counties and central Arkansas have gained, but the Delta counties and southern counties lost people in the past decade. Pine Bluff for the first time has fallen below 50,000, a critical cutoff for federal monies, but it's not clear what that means.
It's not clear what can turn the Delta around. After so many efforts, nothing has worked. The Delta and south Arkansas were big agricultural regions 50 years ago, but since then small farmers have disappeared. The truth is that rural Arkansas was overpopulated. Too many people were trying to farm too little land per farm. This was unsustainable, and of course here we see the result. Agricultural mechanization after World War II did not cause the population loss; it was the result of it. We could not have agriculture in the Delta today without machines. No way.
The paper has a good map showing population shifts in detail. The county with the largest loss is Monroe in eastern Arkansas, losing 20.5 percent.
Talk Business has a post with a map. See the Census Bureau's site.
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