Would this cause Colorado Springs to become a ghost town or at the very least become like Pueblo? (Fort Carson: how much, houses)

[Eric81]

I just wanted to know what you guys think about this. Hypothetically, if all five bases in this city were to close down do you all think that Colorado Springs would become a ghost town? The reason that I asked this was because I really do wonder what percentage of the population of C-Springs is active duty Army and Air Force. I have observed that almost, if not all, of the houses that are occupied in the subdivisions east of Powers are all Air Force people that are stationed down at Peterson and Shriever Air Force bases.

[CTownNative]

Yeah probably, but thats probably not going to happen.

[Postal]

Originally Posted by CTownNative

Yeah probably, but thats probably not going to happen.

Agreed. BRAC is much less likely to close down the multi-mission bases that we have here. Very little of this mission would be better suited elsewhere. And as much as I think the Academy is no longer necessary, I doubt it will ever close since most senior Air Force leadership are academy grads.

[duke1946]

having lived in COS for many years, and having worked at Schriever and the USAFA, i dont believe that ALL of the bases would close in the near future,,,however, due to the financial situation that exists, I could see some movement of facilities in a consolidation....Fort Carson's mission could be relocated somewhere else, eventually, especially now that the Army request for more training ground has been refused and civilian encroachment around the base. NORAD, if it continues to exist, could be located anywhere....The Cheyenne Mountain NORAD inner mountain facility has been mothballed...the Air Force Academy could be merged with other academies to produce military leaders at one joint facility...the problem for COS is that there is much more to the reliance on military spending than just the bases....much of industry here is associated with defense spending on various projects and programs...if some of the bases were to be removed, defense spending would also be affected and the ripple affect would be catastrophic..

[Vision67]

Originally Posted by Eric81

I just wanted to know what you guys think about this. Hypothetically, if all five bases in this city were to close down do you all think that Colorado Springs would become a ghost town? The reason that I asked this was because I really do wonder what percentage of the population of C-Springs is active duty Army and Air Force. I have observed that almost, if not all, of the houses that are occupied in the subdivisions east of Powers are all Air Force people that are stationed down at Peterson and Shriever Air Force bases.

If the DOD exited, we'd become a Flint Michigan type of empty town. I'd bet most money coming into this town is from Defense Department. We have lost about 17,000 high tech jobs since 2001 and the replacement jobs have been mostly in low paying tele-marketing and retail.

However, I seriously doubt the DOD would leave.

[Josseppie]

It would but that is unlikely. However, I heard that just one base closing would cause the county to lose 100,000 people instantly and that is possible.

The bigger question is will the Springs continue to grow with just the military as their base? I say no and you see that with growth projections becoming flat. Unless they do more to attract companies I think you will see the county grow a lot less then it has been and keep its fortunes tied to the military.

Not sure what you meant by "become like Pueblo"? Sure we had issues in the 1980's but we are far from a ghost town and we are one of the few if not only former steel towns to be growing again. Pueblo is actually larger now then we have ever been and that says a lot considering the economic collapse we had in the 1980's. With multi-million dollar projects planned or being built the next 10 years should be great for Pueblo once we get out of this recession.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Vision67

... I seriously doubt the DOD would leave.

Having just spent BILLIONS to upgrade Fort Carson, Peterson, et al, there is little chance that DOD will leave COLO SPGS.

[otowi]

Further, the portion of the population that is military, even if all gone, do not make up even near a majority of the population - there'd be plenty of people left.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Having just spent BILLIONS to upgrade Fort Carson, Peterson, et al, there is little chance that DOD will leave COLO SPGS.

Wasting billions of dollars on something only to abandon it is something that our feckless federal government manages to do with some regularity. One needs to remember that most of our military bases live in the inland areas of this country as a legacy of the WWII mentality of locating bases away from the coasts where they would have been vulnerable to attack or takeover.

Within a very few years, I predict that the majority of American soldiers will have to be redeployed along our southern border when this country figures out that it can not support its current population, much less the starving millions that will attempt to stream north. When that happens, bases like Fort Carson will likely become deserted of personnel. Even if they aren't closed, there won't be any soldiers or soldiers' families left to buy stuff in places like Colorado Springs.

The other reality is that an increasingly impoverished United States will not be able to afford to maintain the monstrous military bureaucracy that keeps bases in places like Colorado Springs alive, no matter how much we might want to. When that happens, the base closure ax will drop--and one can easily predict it will drop most heavily in places that lack the political stroke to prevent it. Colorado--like most of the Rocky Mountain states--has puny political power compared to many other places in the US, so . . .

All of that assumes that somehow the world avoids tumbling into World War III, the avoidance of which--given current events both domestically and internationally--I find increasingly unlikely. In that case, some of the bases in Colorado Springs, along with F. E. Warren up in Cheyenne may sadly be called upon to fulfill their mission--launching nuclear strikes.

[Josseppie]

Originally Posted by otowi

Further, the portion of the population that is military, even if all gone, do not make up even near a majority of the population - there'd be plenty of people left.

You have to look past just the people on the base but all the supporting jobs etc. Then the 3 to 1 ratio for secondary jobs applies here as well.

One base closure would have HUGE implications on the Pikes Peak Region.