The most prominent sociological explanation for the role of military spending in the economy is the military Keynesian perspective , which contends that military spending is used as a countercyclical fiscal tool to stabilize the economy, particularly during economic downswings

The Military Metropolis: Defense Dependence in U.S.Metropolitan Areas

 

Gordon Gauchat 

    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina 

Michael Wallace

    ∗University of Connecticut at Storrs, Connecticut 

Casey Borch

       University of Alabama at Birmingham 

Travis Scott Lowe

       University of Connecticut at Storrs, Connecticut 

 

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This article examines the “military metropolis,” an urban community that depends highly on military expenditures in order to sustain economic vitality. We build on past theories of 

military Keynesianism and employ insights from urban political economy theory to examine the effects of defense contracts and defense personnels pending on five measures of labor market quality (median household income, in-come inequality, poverty 125 percent, unemployment, and casualization) in 276 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas in the year 2000. Whereas previous studies of military spending have focused primarily on nations and U.S. states, this study exam-ines metropolitan areas. We test three hypotheses about how federal military outlaysmight influence urban economies: first, the  defense-dependency hypothesis suggests that urban areas rely on defense dollars in varying degrees to sustain their economic sta-bility and vitality. Second, the localized effects hypothesis proposes that defense person-nel spending on military bases and civilian personnel will have more immediate ef-fects on urban economies than spending on defense procurement contracts. Third,the gunbelt hypothesis predicts that military spending has affected urban economies unevenly, benefiting metropolitan areas in some regions of the country more than others. The results of this study support all three hypotheses. We offer interpretations of our results and discuss the policy implications for U.S. metropolitan areas.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

In the half-century since Mills’ The Power Elite (1956), sociologists and other social scientists have shown a growing interest in the role of the military in society, both in times of war and, particularly, in times of peace. Melman’s (1974)

The Permanent War Economy 

articulated a central concern of many scholars that the U.S. military-industrial complex

 

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∗

Correspondence should be addressed to Michael Wallace, Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut,Storrs, CT 06268-2069; michael.wallace@uconn.edu.

 

2011 American Sociological Association, 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

 

CONCLUSION

Katz (2010, p. 15) has argued that “the history of urban public policy is largely one of disaster.” In the absence of a more coherent urban strategy from the federal government,one could argue that military spending has served as a kind of default option in U.S.urban policy. In short, military spending does more than ensure our national defense; it also serves a vital economic function in bolstering the economic vitality of metropolitanareas. Recently, urban scholars have opined that the Obama administration is crafting a“stealth urban policy” (Silver, 2010, p. 6) in which budget priorities reflect a tacit recom-mitment to U.S. cities and metropolitan areas. The quintessential example of this, theeconomic stimulus package, poured billions of dollars into urban jobs to rebuild infras-tructure and to service urban residents, without explicitly framing these commitments as“urban policy.” Bruce Katz (2010, p. 26) argues that Obama’s metropolitan agenda must forge a new federalist compact in which “federal and state governments serve as strategic,flexible, and accountable partners to help metros act with cohesive vision, address theircentral concerns, realize their full potential and, in so doing, resolve our most pressingnational challenges.” It is unlikely that Obama’s metro agenda will include a wholesaledismantling of the “military metropolis.” However, one sign of a potential turn in ur-ban policy is Obama’s successful effort in eliminating funding for archaic, but lucrative, weapons systems like the $67 billion F

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22 fighter jet. Yet, the defunding of the F-22—that comprised over 1,000 contracts and 95,000 jobs in 44 different states— yields soberinglessons for the future: A large-scale deescalation of military spending is likely to meet  with fierce resistance from the entrenched interests that profit from the permanent war economy. Given the likely persistence of the military metropolis for years to come, future research should devote greater effort to examining this key dynamic of urban economies,particularly the alignment of political and economic interests that produce and sustain this particular type of urban development. There is a renewed urgency to understand the military metropolis, especially while the country is both at war and in recession.”

 

Continue reading at: 
http://www.academia.edu/536148/The_Military_Metropolis_Defense_Dependence_in_U.S._Metropolitan_Areas

 

 

 

2011 American Sociological Association, 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

 

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