As the 2024 election cycle draws to a close, Little Rock Public Radio is looking back at what young voters say they’re most concerned with.
LRPR took part in the America Amplified initiative this year, focusing on boosting community engagement efforts relating to election coverage.
LRPR News Director Daniel Breen joined All Things Considered Host Maggie Ryan to talk about some of the community-level, quality of life issues young voters shared with us. You can find an edited transcript of the conversation below.
Maggie Ryan: Yesterday we spoke about some of the political issues young people were concerned about; education, reproductive health, the economy. What more do you have for us today?
Daniel Breen: Well for this conversation I wanted to focus a little bit more on community and quality-of-life issues. This is something that politicians, especially on the local level, talk about a lot. But it really drove home the point when we went to all of these different communities across Arkansas, and it seemed like students had different specific issues in every new school we went to. But, there was a sort-of overarching theme; Arkansas college students just want more to do.
“We have six Walmarts, we have four Targets, we don’t have enough fun, we don’t have enough activities, we don’t have anything even remotely family-friendly.”
Daniel Breen
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Little Rock Public Radio
Little Rock Public Radio Morning Edition Host Nathan Treece sits at the station’s booth on the Arkansas Tech University campus in Russellville on Sept. 24, 2024.
DB: That’s Weston Whited, he’s a junior at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, actually majoring in radio broadcasting. He and other students I talked to were really upset about the fact that the city’s only shopping mall, the Mall at Turtle Creek, has been shuttered for the past four years because of tornado damage. Jonesboro Mayor Harold Copenhaver has said he wants the mall to reopen, but the city has limited options since it’s owned by a private company. It looks like there are some initial plans to revitalize the space, but it’s unclear whether or not the site’s going to be a mall again.
DB: We also heard a similar sentiment from Marineisha Hardrick, she’s a senior mass communication major at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. She’s originally from Memphis, but says it’s easy to see memories of Pine Bluff’s prosperous past around town.
“People had farms, people had businesses, and now you don’t see too much of that. There’s no mall here, there’s nothing extra for the college students to do which I feel like is a problem because we have a university here—there’s so much money, opportunity that people can gain from. If we just put the right resources in the right places with the right people, Pine Bluff can get back to its original state.”
DB: For Hardrick though, it’s a little different. While it would be nice to have more entertainment options, she says she’s more concerned about the economic impacts.
“We’re in school, and there’s not really a lot of places for us to work. Most students I know travel to Little Rock if they can to get a good-paying job and to afford their housing, so I feel like that comes first, being able to afford housing, with the job opportunities. We don’t have that.”
DB: And the cost of housing was another big issue we heard across the state.
MR: What did you hear?
DB: I spoke with Alex Soulard, he’s a financial aid specialist at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville. He once lived closer to his work, but now commutes from Fayetteville simply because it’s more affordable.
“I believe that Walmart’s encouraged all their executives to Bentonville as their main location. And that’s wonderful, they’re able to buy houses, things like that, but that also increases the price of housing for everyone else… affordable housing for lower-income people, or middle income, is very limited because the market’s been driven up so much.”
DB: He thinks, while big companies like Walmart and Tyson are funding a lot of development in the area, they have a bit more influence on the region’s politics than he’d like to see. Also, since Northwest Arkansas is by far the fastest growing part of the state, Soulard says he’d like to see more investment in mass transit to help cut down on traffic.
Students of Dr. Ann White-Taylor (second from left) in the multimedia communication program at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff pose with LRPR News Director Daniel Breen and All Things Considered Host Maggie Ryan.
DB: Farther south in Fayetteville, Donald Culverson was hosting a tailgate along with his fraternity at the Razorback’s first home game of the season. He’s a Little Rock native, but says he wants to stay where he is.
“Honestly, I like being up here more than I like being in Little Rock. Just because Little Rock, I feel, is more divided than Fayetteville is.”
DB: He says he wants to try to stay in Fayetteville for grad school, but he’d still like to see his hometown take a page from the Northwest Arkansas playbook.
“Just more emphasis on bringing the community together… bringing people from low-income areas, making connections with people from high-income areas, the middle class, so that everybody’s aware of what everybody else deals with on a daily basis, and just be more compassionate individuals at the end of the day.”
MR: I think it’s fair to say we all want a little less divisiveness these days. Did you hear that a lot?
DB: Absolutely, and it could be on account of the elections—a pretty divisive time in general—but I think it definitely did reflect the overall sentiment of this new generation of voters. A lot of them simply don’t care about partisan ideology or rhetoric, they don’t really care whose side is winning. They want things to be better, both in their communities and in others.
DB: But, a lot of young people we talked to said that’s not possible unless more of their generation gets involved in the democratic process. Marleigh Hayes at Hendrix College says voting is a privilege that not everyone has, but she’s been encouraged by the turnout she’s seen at voter registration drives on campus.
“It is honestly difficult to mobilize young adults in Arkansas to register to vote because we assume we’re a red state, and so I want to kind of help people challenge that and help us realize that, as long as our voices are heard, it is meaningful.”
DB: Abigail Wells at the University of Central Arkansas says she started becoming involved after her state representative won re-election by just ten votes.
“Whenever people do gain that awareness, they’re more likely to register to vote. Whenever we were registering people, they’re like ‘Oh, well the presidential [election], I don’t see how it makes that big of an impact.’ And I said, look, from my experience, it was this many votes that actually made a difference.
“I really see people more engaged and interested knowing that a little thing can make a big impact.”
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Publish date : 2024-11-01 02:15:00
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