What a shock: “Pentagon Plans to Close 180 Sites, Shift Area Jobs to Outer Suburbs” is today’s five column headline in The Washington Post.
And I thought I read the base closing list with some care yesterday…
Never fear. Turn to page 11 and get out your compass. All the “Gain” symbols are within R=20 Miles of the centroid of the Baltimore or the National Capital Subregions, within R=5 Miles of the centroid of urban agglomerations (e.g. Frederick, MD) or are big enough places (e.g. Quantico/East Prince William) to become Balanced Communities. These are just the places where one would expect them.
This is not putting the Department of the Army in Culpeper or even the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (think what they could do to help cure Geographic Literacy) in West Prince William.
This is exactly the sort of media distortion that generates and perpetuates Geographic Illiteracy and the illusion of jobs scattering to the fringes.
Also think how great a story it would be if the Pentagon had said they were going to use the clout of base realignment to create Balanced Communities. Sounds like a column to me.
EMR
