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‘The digital colonization of flyover states’: how datacenters are tearing small-town America apart
The rapid expansion of large datacenters across rural America is creating tensions between municipal governments and local residents. In Wilmington, Ohio, Amazon Web Services is seeking a 30-year property tax abatement in exchange for funding local schools and infrastructure as part of a $4 billion datacenter project on 500 acres. Residents like Quintin Koger Kidd have raised concerns about government transparency, open meeting violations, and the broader social and economic implications of corp