‘The digital colonization of flyover states’: how datacenters are tearing small-town America apart

The rapid rollout of datacenters across the US is creating a divide between municipal governments and residents Wilmington, Ohio, resident Quintin Koger Kidd was so concerned last June with his local public officials’ alleged misdoings – open meeting violations and other discrepancies – that he filed a complaint in court to have the mayor and city council members removed from their posts. When Koger Kidd later heard that the city supported plans by Amazon Web Services to build a $4bn datacent...

By Stephen Starr in Wilmington, Ohio