I'm also wondering about the Walmart effect, since Bentonville is in the county immediately to the north.
A lot of companies do a lot of business with Walmart, and it pays for those companies to have representatives close at hand. It may not be a huge number of people, but I suspect there are a decent number of vendors living in Northwest Arkansas whose origins are from across the country and around the world, and I wouldn't be surprised if that affects the local culture.
The urbane-ization of the Norfolk area seems to be affecting that region's politics, and something similar may be happening in NW AR on a smaller scale.
It is my understanding Walmart insists all vendors have representatives living in the area.
As a generally prosperous area, it also attracts large numbers of Hispanics.
Northwest Arkansas and Hot Springs are the only areas in the State that have a significant attraction to out of staters.
