Every October, navy planes rip through San Francisco skies, giant warships barrel through the Bay, and hundreds of uniformed officers fill Marina Gree

Why Are There So Many Abandoned Military Bases in the Bay Area?

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2025-01-27 00:30:07

Every October, navy planes rip through San Francisco skies, giant warships barrel through the Bay, and hundreds of uniformed officers fill Marina Green. Then, a week later, they’re all gone. It’s all part of Fleet Week, a 40-year-old military tradition in San Francisco.

These days, Fleet Week is likely the only time Bay Area residents see armed forces in uniform. Although the military’s presence in the Bay Area was once huge, the Department of Defense began a national effort to downsize in the late 1980s, leaving many former military sites vacant and in need of cleanup.

Bay Curious is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, NPR One or your favorite podcast platform.

Bay Curious listener Cameron Tobey wondered about this history while exploring the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo.

“It seems at one point that every branch of the military had a base here, and now they’re all sitting empty,” Tobey said. “So what happened to them, and what’s the future plans for these bases?”