Bermuda residents -- and it is a timely reminder that we are not alone in having to deal with the opportunities and challenges posed by the former military bases here.

The model adopted by the successful inheritors of bases in the US is similar to that being used in Bermuda -- a mix of businesses, homes and recreation areas which together make for a financially viable resource.

There is also no question that a base in a community with an already strong economy has a better chance of successfully converting to civilian uses.

It is also interesting that some of the homes left on a base near Denver are now being converted into low cost homes, while more expensive homes are being built on the same base, showing that a mixed range of houses is possible.

Given the seemingly endless arguments over making homes on Bermuda's baselands available for low cost housing, this would seem to be an approach worth looking at.

There is a risk that simply having low-cost housing on a base will turn the area into a ghetto; it would be a better to have a mixed range of homes, along with other neighbourhood features such as grocery stores, churches and schools.

Much of that is already being done at Southside. More importantly, businesses are also being encouraged to come into the area and this is fundamental. The former bases' long-term benefit to the Island will be much greater if the land is used to produce economic spin-offs and jobs rather than homes alone.

Where, according to the story, the US and Bermuda differ is over environmental remediation. In the US, many of the cost savings from the post-Cold War "peace dividend'' went towards environmental clean-ups as required by law. No such law exists for foreign US bases and Bermuda has hardly seen a penny from the US for the damage done to the former Naval Air Station and the former Naval Annex.

This of course, has much to do with the relatively slow pace of conversion on the base lands. Government needs to continue to push for a fair deal from the US in order to allow Bermuda to responsibly develop this fresh resource.

YEAR OF THE OLDER PERSON EDT Year of the Older Person Bermuda, along with the rest of the world, is marking 1999 as "the Year of the Older Person''.

This is appropriate as the end of the Millennium nears; people over the age of 65 can truly claim that they have made this century.

Senior citizens in Bermuda deserve credit for making Bermuda what it is today and deserve to live in comfort and security. Too often older people are treated with disrespect and find themselves struggling financially due to inadequate or nonexistent pensions and health insurance which offers less as illnesses mount.

If the Year of the Older Person focuses attention on the challenges which older people face, then it will have been a year well spent.