the underview.
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The underview is an exploration of the shaping of our place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.
The underview is a series of discussions within and about the community of Northwest Arkansas. The underview explores our collective understanding and beliefs about the place we live.
These discussions will include topics that are foundational to the identity of our region, the history of our communities, the truth of conflict with the land and its people, and the current challenges and opportunities for our community.
90 Episodes
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Send us a text What happens to a community when no one is paying attention? Since 2005, America has lost more than 3,200 newspapers and the number of journalists per capita has dropped from 40 to just 8 per 100,000 people. The consequences are measurable: voter turnout drops, fewer people run for office, and communities lose the capacity to know what's happening to themselves. Bentonville had local journalism since 1857, but when local papers consolidated into regional coverage in 2015, nearl...
Send us a text In Northwest Arkansas, where housing affordability was once the region's greatest draw, working families are increasingly being pushed to the edges. Women with children in their cars are showing up at church doorsteps asking a question congregations struggle to answer: "What do I do? Where do I go?" When Christ and Neighbor Church in Rogers was approached about the Urban Land Institute's Faithful Foundations program, Pastor Scott Page saw an alignment between what his church ha...
Send us a text In a region where home prices have jumped 70.9% in five years and median rent has increased by double digits across every major city, affordable housing solutions can feel elusive. But the Faithful Foundations program, created by the Urban Land Institute of Northwest Arkansas, offers a different approach: what if churches could use land they already own to help address the crisis? Candi Adams, Director of Signature Programs for ULI Northwest Arkansas, joins the conversation to ...
Send us a text In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Perla Guerrero, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland and author of Nuevo South, to explore one of the most significant transformations in Northwest Arkansas history: what happens when a place that was overwhelmingly white through most of the 20th century experiences rapid demographic diversification. Dr. Guerrero shares her own journey as an undocumented immigrant who moved from California to Fort Smith at a...
Send us a text Solomon Burchfield, Executive Director of New Beginnings NWA, brings both lived experience and professional expertise to one of Northwest Arkansas's most urgent challenges. Growing up in a family that faced the real possibility of homelessness. That formative memory, combined with years working directly with chronically homeless neighbors, has shaped his vision for what he calls "universal dignity," a community where everyone has access to the basic resources needed to survive ...
Send us a text In this episode of the underview, we sit down with Victor Gurel, CEO of Trailblazers, the organization shaping how Northwest Arkansas moves, connects, and imagines its future. From singletrack to city streets, Trailblazers leads the region’s effort to design trails, tunnels, and active transportation systems that connect communities through shared infrastructure. Their work reminds us that movement is about more than recreation; it’s about access, equity, and belonging. Victor ...
Send us a text In this episode of the underview, host Mike Rusch sits down with Michael Spivey (President & CEO), Brannon Pack (Senior Director of Operations), and Bobby Finster (Project Lead) from the Ozark Foundation to explore the future of the Arkansas Rural Recreational Roads Initiative (R3). As the cycling community in Northwest Arkansas continues to grow, it also finds itself navigating complex divisions, from the All Bikes Welcome mural debate to the conversations sparked by The O...
Send us a text In this episode, we sit back down with Andy Chasteen, co-founder of Rule of Three and Oz Gravel, to reflect on the state of cycling in Northwest Arkansas. Andy first joined us in season one to share his vision for cycling as a force for belonging in this place. This follow-up conversation explores how that vision has evolved against the backdrop of national division, local debates, and the ongoing growth of our cycling culture. Andy speaks candidly about the challenges of polar...
Send us a text In this episode, we continue the story of the “All Bikes Welcome” mural, this time from the perspective of the artist, Paige Dirksen, whose vision and brushstrokes brought it into being. What began as a joyful community project with more than 80 participants under the 3rd Street bridge at Coler Mountain Bike Preserve became the center of one of Bentonville’s most divisive civic debates. Paige reflects on the joy of creating public art, the harm and exhaustion of months of contr...
Send us a text In this episode, Dr. Rachel Olzer, Executive Director of All Bikes Welcome, reflects on what the “All Bikers Welcome” mural symbolizes, the weight of the public fight both personally and professionally, and what it reveals about belonging in Northwest Arkansas. This conversation is not only about a mural, but about who gets to belong in public life, and how a city chooses to shape its character in the face of conflict. The mural itself, designed by artist Paige Dirksen and pain...
Send us a text In this season two final episode, host Mike Rusch takes us back to the gravel road where the story of Northwest Arkansas began, a road overlooking unmarked graves, a place of silence and memory. From that ground, the season has traced centuries of history: Indigenous nations removed from their homelands, enslaved people forced to labor, families rebuilding after the Civil War, immigrants shaping new communities, and the global systems of capitalism, faith, and labor that contin...
Send us a text We close this season with the voice of Barbara Carr, great-granddaughter of Aaron Anderson “Rock” Van Winkle, an enslaved boy brought to Northwest Arkansas in the 1830s who became one of the region’s most skilled builders after Emancipation. His hands helped construct homes, courthouses, churches, and Old Main at the University of Arkansas, yet his name was nearly erased from public memory. Barbara’s story is one of pain and perseverance, of uncovering the truth about her famil...
Send us a text Aaron Anderson Rock Van Winkle was born into slavery and is believed to have been one of the first enslaved persons to be brought to Northwest Arkansas. After emancipation, he became a landowner, father, and community member in Bentonville, Arkansas. But even today, his story remains largely absent from public memory. In this episode, we sit down with local historian Jerry Moore to explore Rock’s life and legacy, and to consider how the stories of formerly enslaved people...
Send us a text From Enlightenment ideals to the myth of the American frontier, the founding ideologies of the United States have long shaped how we define humanity, progress, and belonging. In this episode, Dr. Todd Stockdale invites us to trace how these ideologies, especially the Western liberal view of the autonomous individual, intersected with Protestant theology and national identity. Drawing on the work of John Locke, Max Weber, and Karl Marx, we explore how these frameworks have infor...
Send us a text Religion in the South is more than tradition; it’s a force that has shaped politics, belonging, and identity across generations. In this episode, we return to Dr. Jared M. Phillips to ask for a historical view to try and understand where that power comes from, and how it takes root in the South and places like Northwest Arkansas? Throughout the season, we’ve heard guests reference the role of faith, from schools to city planning, from community resilience to systems of exclusi...
Send us a text In this episode, we sit down with Irvin Camacho, a Community Rights Organizer and immigrant advocate based in Northwest Arkansas. Irvin shares how his family's experience—his parents working in the region’s poultry plants—shaped his understanding of labor, language, and belonging. Through his work on language justice, immigrant rights education, and deportation defense, Irvin is at the forefront of organizing efforts to challenge anti-immigrant legislation and support families ...
Send us a text In Northwest Arkansas, the poultry industry has long been a cornerstone of the region’s economic growth. Behind the refrigerated cases and production lines are thousands of workers, many of them immigrants, whose stories and experiences are rarely part of the public conversation. In this episode, we sit down with Magaly Licolli, co-founder and Executive Director of Venceremos, a worker-based organization advocating for poultry workers in Arkansas. Magaly helps us explore the co...
Send us a text In this episode, we confront one of the most culturally significant topics in Northwest Arkansas: the role of Walmart, Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt in shaping not only the economy, but the entire identity of the region. These companies have brought immense opportunity, visibility, and resources to Northwest Arkansas. But they’ve also concentrated power in unprecedented ways, influencing housing, labor, immigration, policy, and public life. To explore this history with clarity and...
Send us a text For decades, Latino immigrants have come to the United States in search of stability, opportunity, and a better future. But what brought them specifically to Arkansas—and to Northwest Arkansas in particular? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Steven Rosales, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at the University of Arkansas, to trace the broader arc of Latino migration and the forces, economic, political, and corporate,...
Send us a text In part two of our conversation with Dr. Jared Phillips, we trace the transformation of the Ozarks from an agrarian culture built on land, memory, and mutuality into a region shaped by corporate industry and consolidated power. We explore how poultry integration, economic policy, and the rise of companies like Tyson and Walmart reshaped Northwest Arkansas, altering not just the economy, but the identity of the place itself. This episode bridges the legacy of civil rights and la...
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