Author(s)

B. SCHLIEMANN, J. MULLIN, Z. KOTVAL-K & Z. KOTVAL

Abstract

The United States Department of Defense (DOD), since World War II, has endeavoured to maintain hundreds of military facilities across the United States. Many of these facilities no longer meet the current or expected future defence needs of the nation. For this reason the DOD has embarked on a long-term programme of base closings across the country. The programme is fraught with angst, anger and fear as it touches millions of workers and the economic health of local communities and regions. Nonetheless, the results, to date, have been largely reasonable, well thought out, fair and mostly positive.

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse the base closing experience in the six-state New England area of the United States since the end of World War II. Since that time 17 such installations have been closed. Only four remain. The article lays the foundation for how bases have been closed. It includes an overview and analysis of how bases were closed between 1945 and 1987 (the pre-BRAC era) and from 1988 through the present (the BRAC era). The article provides a concise case-by-case example of what has happened in terms of the closing processes to the 17 installations that have been closed across New England. This is followed by an interpretation of the results in the section ‘Lessons Learnt’.

Keywords

adaptive reuse, community development, military base closings