Shared Land Use Impacts Between Military Installations And Contiguous Communities (post-BRAC): Fact And Opinion Differences In Planning And Public Policy

How a policy or planning tool (e.g. BRAC) contributes to real and perceived conclusions from policy implementation is the main focus of this research. This research examines differences between real and perceived encroachment issues and concerns through study of military installations and their contiguous communities using post-BRAC opinion data compared to conclusions drawn from pre-BRAC and post-BRAC empirical data. A study of six (6) supporting research topics from current literature leads to a hypothesis that there are no differences between the same variables using empirical data (reality) and opinions (perception) with respect to variable descriptors of encroachment in the post-BRAC time period. Study expectations are that there is no difference between real impacts and professional opinions (e.g. military and civilian) from policy implementation. This study investigates whether professional opinions are related to the reality of communities. It is expected that professional planning opinions are accurate. Also, the study adds to urban planning knowledge about differences in real and perceived planning information, and discloses community and military base associations with regard to urban policy and community planning.