What’s the draw to get tech workers to migrate there, other than lower home prices? Seems like a notable decline in quality of life compared to their soon to be closed hubs.
Honestly, you’d have to be a sucker. Imagine you have an established life in a well regarded city at a nice salary. You have friends, a home, hobbies, a routine, local knowledge. The job market is the best it’s been since your parents were kids. Then suddenly you are told you need to leave that all behind, take a massive cost of living paycut (because no corporation will pay you CA rates to live in AR), and move to one of the most economically troubled states in the country. Why would you let some amorphous entity jerk you around like that, upturn your life, without any appreciation of the sacrifice?
The only people taking this deal are either at a career inflection point or completely trapped.
There's a world class art museum there, if that's your thing. Funded by the Waltons, of course :)
Ozarks are beautiful but that's gotta be a total culture shock. Biggest issue is - what do you do when you want to leave Walmart? You'll have to move again, or work remotely.
Arkansas is beautiful but of course the quality of life doesn't come close to watching a homeless person shit on your driveway and pitch a tent on your front yard.
You’ve been to Little Rock or west Memphis before? There is a reason north west AK is popular these days while the rest of the state has huge problems.
Not that I'm saying Bentonville is my dream destination, but it's a lot more like my ideal place than San Francisco or any major tech hub is. Being in a dense metro isn't everyone's idea of "quality of life".
Other sibling comments are mentioning what a nice place Bentonville is compared to California/Texas/any other major population center.
I’m sure there are a lot of nice things but what happens when you and Walmart split ways? There’s not a ton of other employers so you’re back to remote work. So then why even move there in the first place?
This area has a lot of options really. Tysons foods, JB Hunt, Simmons Foods, and of course you also have the companies that have a local presence to support Walmart.
Yep, one of the Walmart heirs is big into biking and they have apparently sunk a whole lot of money into trails and amenities in NW Arkansas.
There are some other good things happening here and there in that area, like Fayetteville getting rid of arbitrary, expensive, parking requirements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUhOFUQDLQk
I’ve heard it’s a pretty nice town with good outdoors options. If you have a family it’s probably a better option than overpriced Austin or the concrete jungle of Dallas (just to pick on two popular transplant options recently).
I've not been there, but Bentonville sounds like a combination of suburbia plus cultural options you'd expect in a much more urban area. If you're interested in living in a semi rural smaller town (~55k) it's probably among the more stable options you'll find in the US.
It depends. Some people don't care about surf or hot new holes in the wall for grub. They are happy in a low key town with a couple of strip malls a brewery and peace and quiet and especially look forward to less city grime and crime.
California became so popular because it accommodated lots of different lifestyles, its main drawback ATM is that it’s too popular (so lots of people are priced out).
Bentonville is us in northwest Arkansas, right in the Ozarks, I wouldn’t really consider it in the same boat with the rest of the state. I hear it’s actually a nice place to live if you can bare living in a red state (which, these days, has lots of legal drawbacks).
This is what I wonder. It’s in a conservative state, which is a bad thing for a lot of tech workers. They would have to pay me at least 500k/year to convince me to move to the Bible Belt. Even then…
