Agreements to close bases instead funded billions in new U.S. housing.

Evidence

While little has happened in terms of closing Futenma and moving marines off Okinawa, what has happened under the 1996 agreement is a lot of new base construction. Specifically, Japan had already agreed to fund 2 billion in new housing as part of a plan to replace 1,473 homes at Kadena Air Base and 1,777 units at Camp Foster. (On top of this, U.S. taxpayers funded a 95 million project to renovate 560 multifamily homes and expand parking to a very high 2.5 spaces per unit at Kadena.) “So what started out as a response to a rape ended up being a major housing construction program, providing new homes at no cost” to the United States, notes Mark Gillem. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 868

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s broader thesis (chapters on how agreements to appease host communities lead to new construction rather than closures) and to existing material on rents and the sympathy budget.
• QUESTION: How common is this pattern of ‘closure’ agreements producing the opposite—new construction funded by hosts—across other U.S. bases worldwide?