Responding to economic change in remote, rural regions: federal installations in Idaho and Washington.

摘要

US government spending on nuclear weapons materials and research had a huge impact on a small number of regions during the 1940s and 1950s. This concentration of financial and physical resources caused the almost overnight formation of small urban centers in what formerly had been remote, rural areas, and made the economies of the regions that surround the two physically largest sites at Hanford and INEEL heavily dependent on nuclear-related government funding. With the end of the Cold War and global agreement to reduce nuclear arsenals, most of these facilities have been made obsolete. More than 10hin000 jobs have been recently eliminated and thousands more were lost at private companies providing support services. Further reductions will likely occur within the next 7-10 years. This study looks at how local leaders in the still largely rural regions surrounding these two Department of Energy (DOE) sites responded to these economic changes, how the communities reacted to the likelihood that these facilities would never again be a significant economic engine for the region, and actions being taken to reduce the impact of future DOE cutbacks. The results raise critical questions regarding the long-term economic future of the two regions and whether a more aggressive multi-faceted effort is required to stave off a long-term decline.