A base closure likely will not lead to economic catastrophe, despite community fears, according to a UC Davis researcher. The fear of near-catastrophe when a base closes is exaggerated due partially to over-stated effects of economic multipliers and to subsequent community re-formation after a closure, says Ted Bradshaw, a community development professor who analyzed the closure impacts of Castle Air Force Base near Merced, Calif. Bradshaw's findings were published this spring in the Journal of the American Planning Association. While communities may face some periods of decline when a base closes, the initial impacts on the local economy are surprisingly milder than expected given the number of employees and size of base budgets, Bradshaw found. This is because bases are not as economically integral in a community as some may think. "Even fully operating bases have weak links to the community and the economy in which they are located," he says. When the military leaves a region: * typically military retirees shift their shopping from a base commissary to private stores, replacing lost sales by those military personnel who are transferred from the area; * toxic cleanup expenditures replace those for base construction, affordable housing becomes available; and * base re-use commissions stimulate regional cooperation among communities, Bradshaw shows in his study. While Bradshaw's study focuses primarily on the closure at Castle, the study's findings can be useful, he says, for communities facing similar closures. "By knowing how to evaluate the claim that a base closure will be catastrophic and identify which losses will be significant, a community can better prepare for the economic development challenge that it must undertake to convert closure to an opportunity," Bradshaw says.