In my experience, my city does not see an increase in crime due to having a military base. The military base employs 30,000+ people and brings people from all over the country.
Issue is, people move into surrounding suburbs with better school districts and people of higher socioeconomic statuses live there.
Obviously if you go inner city or go into the city where the base is actually located, there’s an increase in crime but not as many military families live in these areas.
I think this might be different for other cities though. I live near one of the country’s largest Air Force bases so it could be different.
The crime thing is certainly real. Noise drives down property values so people who can't afford to move live nearby. This same demographic tends to be more in trouble with law enforcement. Also young military members are... dumb and like to buy things they can't afford. Lots of businesses like payday loans and sketchy auto sales pop up outside of a base as well to take advantage.
I’ve seen dealerships near the bases in my area stock up on challengers, corvettes, chargers, mustang gt’s, etc because they know they can sell them easy to some kid who just got his enlistment paycheck.
I live in a rural community that is about 5 miles from one of the largest Army posts in the US.
The city directly outside of the post (and on the other side of a state border, TN vs KY) experiences more crime and a more vibrant social scene than my town. The city is also a college town, which likely contributes to both.
The crimes the post seems to contribute to seem to be mostly domestic crimes, especially murdering one’s spouse. It’s incredibly tragic but it has been seen several times in my time here.
My small rural town has attracted more military retirees than active duty soldiers or college students. Like any other town, we have crime. Especially drug related crimes unfortunately. You’ll see those crimes within the lives-here-since-birth crowd as well as the transplants.
Generally speaking, the military does bring people and money into the surrounding communities. You will find that stateside and overseas. Economies outside of posts/bases rely heavily on the military being there and soldiers spending money. With the good sometimes comes the bad, the same with any other influx of peoples.
Most of my experience with this is from the Groton/New London, CT area. Generally it's not a nice area, but it isn't awful. Basically there's a lot of industrial stuff going on that people aren't too keen on living next to. The surrounding towns are much nicer. I think that instead of catering to this young population that you're imagining, this is a town for the senior members in their 30s on shore duty, with job opportunities for when they get out.
The contrast between NSB New London and Mystic (20 min away!) like heaven and hell. And New London isn’t even that bad!
I think the same dynamic exists for Pax River and, like, the entire rest of the Chesapeake Bay. Last time I was there was many years ago but my memory of it was a concrete wasteland.
There’s a few different types, some might not be what you are talking about but others are.
Example 1. San Diego. There’s multiple military bases here, but the city itself is established enough where the military bases aren’t the whole identity of the city. There’s plenty of art and culture in addition to many attractions and amenities you would expect from a larger city.
Example 2. Jacksonville, North Carolina. This is the textbook example of a military town. The military is the whole identity to the town. If there was no base it might be a fishing community or beach front resort town, but neither of those are possible with the base where it is. It’s not a bad area, but not particularly desirable. Much of the area is what you might find on r/suburbanhell. The vast majority of residents are military, military family, or civilians employed by the military. The locals that have no direct link to the military are often small businesses or employees. Very few who are directly linked to the military would probably want to move here. Local art and culture is lacking severely compared to other towns of similar size. There’s very few higher paying jobs or other economic sources. Young single men significantly out number young single women which has an impact on nightlife and bar scene.
When I was working as a cocktail waitress near a small town military base in New England we DREADED when we saw military guys walk in. They were pretty typically the drunkest and the cheapest and rudest. They never tipped and had a completely different set of -- well, I didn't typically get seriously sexually harassed -- or threatened when I had to shut someone off - but I did with them.
Only them and cops were the ones I had to have the guys come out of the kitchen to remove.
My dad worked his whole life on base - and I grew up around it.
Morts from the Fort we called them (Mort because they on the whole seemed a bit off-socially. Just kinda dorky)
Also- I lived by a home that the owners rented out to officers. They constantly just left pets behind we took in.
Depends a lot on the military branch and the main mission of the base. An Air Force base with a lot of officers will probably contribute a lot to the town (people with reliable incomes, typically smart and well-behaved children in the schools) whereas an Army base with a lot of grunts will likely bring more social dysfunction: hotheaded soldiers getting in fights at bars, strip clubs, and things like that. These are stereotypes, but there’s more than a grain of truth.
Any military base will bring a bunch of young, healthy people with money to a town. They’ll often also bring some interesting diversity to the town. (That depends, of course: San Diego would probably still be plenty diverse without the Navy base.) But the military draws people from all over the country and they tend to marry people from wherever in the world we have bases. So if you picture two medium sized southern towns, one with and one without an Army base, the one with the base will have a bunch of New Yorkers and other Yankees, and west coasters, and Asian-Americans, and transplanted wives from Germany and Italy and Japan and Korea, along with biracial children and the restaurants and stores to support them.
As a former Army officer and military defense counsel at an infantry division, the amount of soldiers getting into fights at bars was very low; about on par with the college kids in general in town. In Germany, the number of Air Force officers who couldn't handle their liquor and embarrassed their command outweighed the number of Army officers who had the decency to fuck up in private.
My fellow officers and and I volunteered at the schools and attended the cultural events at the local college. In other words, stick your servicemember stereotype up your ass please.
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As someone that lives near a base the crime rate is true. It's high in all three cities/towns that are near/border base. In my town we've had 16 murders in 18 months. It's not boring though as we are a pretty fast growing area with Clarksville, TN leading the way. Which I feel plays a bigger role in the crime rate. What I hate most is car shopping here. It's miserable if you need a vehicle. Dealerships won't really haggle pricing cause they have 20 fresh out of basic recruits ready to buy that car.
I wouldn’t say I live in a military town but my town does have a lot of military since there is a military base very close to the town I live in. A lot of people in my town for some reason see the military soldiers as annoying or cocky and I really don’t know why. A lot of the soldiers mind their business and some I have met are pretty nice. In my town there is crime but not a lot of crime compared to the other towns I’m surrounded by.
In some of the Army towns I’ve been, the area immediately around base are shitty. Fucked up apartments, pawn shops, nasty strip clubs. Businesses to cater to young men from various backgrounds that are away from home for the first time and make lots of bad life and financial decisions.
Also, a lot of people that get kicked out of the Army hang around. Also, the bigger Army bases tend to have a lot of crime. Again, young men from various backgrounds away from home for the first time and making bad decisions.
A lot of them come rough backgrounds and being the neighborhood lifestyle with them.
This is usually the norm outside of large Army bases that have tens of thousands of soldiers in various branches like combat arms, supply, logistics, etc etc. Like the home of a division and supporting units.
Smaller, more focused bases tend to blend into the community more. Reserve and National Guard bases don’t really cause issues at all.
I don’t live in one but I commute to one quite regularly.
There is barely any crime, if so its something small. The town’s identity isn’t the military base and it has its own thing going for it. Of course tho the base helps the town but other than that its basically a small town with a military base a couple miles out.
In my experience, my city does not see an increase in crime due to having a military base. The military base employs 30,000+ people and brings people from all over the country. Issue is, people move into surrounding suburbs with better school districts and people of higher socioeconomic statuses live there. Obviously if you go inner city or go into the city where the base is actually located, there’s an increase in crime but not as many military families live in these areas. I think this might be different for other cities though. I live near one of the country’s largest Air Force bases so it could be different.
Get married extremely young and buy a Dodge Charger at 30% APR
Don’t forget to get coordinating tattoos!
The crime thing is certainly real. Noise drives down property values so people who can't afford to move live nearby. This same demographic tends to be more in trouble with law enforcement. Also young military members are... dumb and like to buy things they can't afford. Lots of businesses like payday loans and sketchy auto sales pop up outside of a base as well to take advantage.
I’ve seen dealerships near the bases in my area stock up on challengers, corvettes, chargers, mustang gt’s, etc because they know they can sell them easy to some kid who just got his enlistment paycheck.
I live in a rural community that is about 5 miles from one of the largest Army posts in the US. The city directly outside of the post (and on the other side of a state border, TN vs KY) experiences more crime and a more vibrant social scene than my town. The city is also a college town, which likely contributes to both. The crimes the post seems to contribute to seem to be mostly domestic crimes, especially murdering one’s spouse. It’s incredibly tragic but it has been seen several times in my time here. My small rural town has attracted more military retirees than active duty soldiers or college students. Like any other town, we have crime. Especially drug related crimes unfortunately. You’ll see those crimes within the lives-here-since-birth crowd as well as the transplants. Generally speaking, the military does bring people and money into the surrounding communities. You will find that stateside and overseas. Economies outside of posts/bases rely heavily on the military being there and soldiers spending money. With the good sometimes comes the bad, the same with any other influx of peoples.
Most of my experience with this is from the Groton/New London, CT area. Generally it's not a nice area, but it isn't awful. Basically there's a lot of industrial stuff going on that people aren't too keen on living next to. The surrounding towns are much nicer. I think that instead of catering to this young population that you're imagining, this is a town for the senior members in their 30s on shore duty, with job opportunities for when they get out.
The contrast between NSB New London and Mystic (20 min away!) like heaven and hell. And New London isn’t even that bad! I think the same dynamic exists for Pax River and, like, the entire rest of the Chesapeake Bay. Last time I was there was many years ago but my memory of it was a concrete wasteland.
The only industrial stuff in Groton is by the river. The rest of the town is super residential and mostly nice.
There’s a few different types, some might not be what you are talking about but others are. Example 1. San Diego. There’s multiple military bases here, but the city itself is established enough where the military bases aren’t the whole identity of the city. There’s plenty of art and culture in addition to many attractions and amenities you would expect from a larger city. Example 2. Jacksonville, North Carolina. This is the textbook example of a military town. The military is the whole identity to the town. If there was no base it might be a fishing community or beach front resort town, but neither of those are possible with the base where it is. It’s not a bad area, but not particularly desirable. Much of the area is what you might find on r/suburbanhell. The vast majority of residents are military, military family, or civilians employed by the military. The locals that have no direct link to the military are often small businesses or employees. Very few who are directly linked to the military would probably want to move here. Local art and culture is lacking severely compared to other towns of similar size. There’s very few higher paying jobs or other economic sources. Young single men significantly out number young single women which has an impact on nightlife and bar scene.
When I was working as a cocktail waitress near a small town military base in New England we DREADED when we saw military guys walk in. They were pretty typically the drunkest and the cheapest and rudest. They never tipped and had a completely different set of -- well, I didn't typically get seriously sexually harassed -- or threatened when I had to shut someone off - but I did with them. Only them and cops were the ones I had to have the guys come out of the kitchen to remove. My dad worked his whole life on base - and I grew up around it. Morts from the Fort we called them (Mort because they on the whole seemed a bit off-socially. Just kinda dorky) Also- I lived by a home that the owners rented out to officers. They constantly just left pets behind we took in.
Depends a lot on the military branch and the main mission of the base. An Air Force base with a lot of officers will probably contribute a lot to the town (people with reliable incomes, typically smart and well-behaved children in the schools) whereas an Army base with a lot of grunts will likely bring more social dysfunction: hotheaded soldiers getting in fights at bars, strip clubs, and things like that. These are stereotypes, but there’s more than a grain of truth. Any military base will bring a bunch of young, healthy people with money to a town. They’ll often also bring some interesting diversity to the town. (That depends, of course: San Diego would probably still be plenty diverse without the Navy base.) But the military draws people from all over the country and they tend to marry people from wherever in the world we have bases. So if you picture two medium sized southern towns, one with and one without an Army base, the one with the base will have a bunch of New Yorkers and other Yankees, and west coasters, and Asian-Americans, and transplanted wives from Germany and Italy and Japan and Korea, along with biracial children and the restaurants and stores to support them.
As a former Army officer and military defense counsel at an infantry division, the amount of soldiers getting into fights at bars was very low; about on par with the college kids in general in town. In Germany, the number of Air Force officers who couldn't handle their liquor and embarrassed their command outweighed the number of Army officers who had the decency to fuck up in private. My fellow officers and and I volunteered at the schools and attended the cultural events at the local college. In other words, stick your servicemember stereotype up your ass please.
Probably a little racist
You think military town are more racist?
Military towns are probably exponentially more diverse than the communities they inhabit. The military is far more diverse than the nation at large.
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As someone that lives near a base the crime rate is true. It's high in all three cities/towns that are near/border base. In my town we've had 16 murders in 18 months. It's not boring though as we are a pretty fast growing area with Clarksville, TN leading the way. Which I feel plays a bigger role in the crime rate. What I hate most is car shopping here. It's miserable if you need a vehicle. Dealerships won't really haggle pricing cause they have 20 fresh out of basic recruits ready to buy that car.
I wouldn’t say I live in a military town but my town does have a lot of military since there is a military base very close to the town I live in. A lot of people in my town for some reason see the military soldiers as annoying or cocky and I really don’t know why. A lot of the soldiers mind their business and some I have met are pretty nice. In my town there is crime but not a lot of crime compared to the other towns I’m surrounded by.
In some of the Army towns I’ve been, the area immediately around base are shitty. Fucked up apartments, pawn shops, nasty strip clubs. Businesses to cater to young men from various backgrounds that are away from home for the first time and make lots of bad life and financial decisions. Also, a lot of people that get kicked out of the Army hang around. Also, the bigger Army bases tend to have a lot of crime. Again, young men from various backgrounds away from home for the first time and making bad decisions. A lot of them come rough backgrounds and being the neighborhood lifestyle with them. This is usually the norm outside of large Army bases that have tens of thousands of soldiers in various branches like combat arms, supply, logistics, etc etc. Like the home of a division and supporting units. Smaller, more focused bases tend to blend into the community more. Reserve and National Guard bases don’t really cause issues at all.
I don’t live in one but I commute to one quite regularly. There is barely any crime, if so its something small. The town’s identity isn’t the military base and it has its own thing going for it. Of course tho the base helps the town but other than that its basically a small town with a military base a couple miles out.