ABSTRACT
This chapter offers some guidelines for community action at the state and local levels. It shows that the states and localities most active in conversion usually have within them a community organization that is focusing on the issue and is successfully capturing the attention of government officials, usually by becoming part of a larger economic-development coalition. State and local "reconversion" initiatives and proposals were begun during and after World War II; the state and local economic-development profession can be said to have been born during this period. States have economic-development offices that are supposed to confront regional recessions such as those of 1981-1982. In some cases interesting statewide conversion initiatives are being undercut by state officials and the most active programs are at the local level. The first Federal initiative, the creation of the Office of Economic Adjustment in the Department of Defense in 1961, was designed to facilitate state and local planning.
