Reviews & Comments
Fort Smith, AR
re: DO NOT MOVE TO FORT SMITH ARKANSAS!! - 7/22/2 -
9/22/2014You left Fort Smith in 1988 but still think you know what it's like here? Well, you nailed it. It hasn't changed except that it's much worse now. Now we've lost Whirlpool and several businesses that supported them and all the money they infused into our local economy. Home prices have dropped through the floor. Unemployment is still lower than the national average, but people have to work for so little.
Doctors do actually tend to bring in more than the national average in Fort Smith for some reason. We have a pretty strong medical community with a greater percentage of our population employed in the medical field than average. Doctors do make more on average according to the wage date out there but nurses and everyone else in the medical field bring in much less than the national average. Lawyers aren't making squat these days. There are way too many and hardly anyone can afford to hire them. Decades old law firms broke up and experienced attorneys went out to compete with new lawyers for entry level jobs. The median attorney in our metro area now makes $56,030, less than the median for attorneys in the Pine Bluff metro area, the lowest in the state and way lower than the national median income. It's a really bad time to be a lawyer in Fort Smith.
For the fact is though that almost everyone makes a good bit less in this town than people doing the same work elsewhere. The economy is in bad shape and getting worse. We're losing all our planes at the Air Guard base. We've lost most of our TV stations (or all?) to Northwest Arkansas, where our mail is now sorted. If you send a letter across the street it goes to Fayetteville first. Our newspaper is going up there too. How many decades has the Southwest Times been here? Seems like nobody wants to do business here anymore.
I want to leave desperately but can't yet. I have kids in school here and they live with me half the time and their mother the other half. My youngest will graduate in 2018 though. Then if things haven't improved dramatically in this town I'm leaving. I work in professional services and will have to start over again in my fifties, build up a new clientele, but that can't be harder than struggling for enough decent paying business to make it here.
Fort Smith, AR
re: DO NOT MOVE TO FORT SMITH ARKANSAS!! - 7/22/2 -
9/22/2014a