Also after World War II, the costs of continued farming, especially shipping costs, made farming more and more unprofitable. Many farm owners subdivided their farms for home building, and some were forced by financial reasons to do so. This post-World War II housing explosion pretty well petered out by the time of the energy crisis and recession in the early to mid-1970s. This lull in new housing was also a result of the departure of many major employers who left the city of Newburgh and other surrounding communities to relocate in southern states, where the cost of labor was much cheaper. This exodus of local employment climaxed with the closing of Stewart Air Force Base—by far the region's largest employer—in 1970. There are several housing developments—Wedgewood Park being perhaps the most prominent example—which received subdevelopment and building approval in the 1960s but were not actually built until many years later.