Metroplan has issued its semi-annual trends report on the Little Rock metropolitan area and emphasizes the positive — a 5.5 percent population growth in the five-county area since 2010, which is exactly the U.S. average for areas with populations between 500,000 and 1 million. But the figures show decidedly slower growth for the urban core cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock. The report also writes about efforts to encourage denser development in suburbs.