[CPEO-MEF] REUSE: "Looking towards the future at [former Chanute Air Force Base, IL]"

[Lenny Siegel]

Looking towards the future at Chanute

By Andrew Dunham
Smile Politely (IL)
March 1, 2018 

Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) is a strategic process enacted by the US Military to streamline resources in the form of shedding bases deemed to be unnecessary, especially following the Cold War. This process allows for better equipment and resources at centralized locations and returns the land of redundant facilities to their respective locales. Since the program began, over 350 installations, many from wartime building booms, have been closed to varying levels of success. Our local Chanute Air Force Base was part of the first round of proposed closures in 1988, eventually leading to its 1993 decommissioning.

One memory from my childhood I have is playing in a lacrosse tournament in middle school at a former air base: the Glenview Naval Air Station, which closed in 1995, about 15 years before I played lacrosse there. When I played there, I never knew it was once a base, it was a town unto itself called The Glen. Houses, shops, schools, churches, lakes and parks now cover the vast former airfield. Similar examples exist outside of Orlando, Denver, and San Diego. Atlanta’s Fort McPherson is also planned to undergo a similar reintegration into civilian society. So why not Chanute? Why are parts of Rantoul’s Chanute AFB still vacant and decaying?

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For the entire article, see
http://www.smilepolitely.com/culture/looking_towards_the_future_at_chanute/

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel at cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org