What happens when data centers come to town? A whole lot, wanted or not. Tech firms are promising to pour trillions of dollars into building new data centers to continue powering the rapid growth of AI models, which means they are asking communities across the country if they are looking for new neighbors. According to a Wall Street Journal report , nearly three-quarters of all US data center capacity currently comes from just 33 of the nation’s 3,143 counties, and residents of those communities are starting to wonder if the current economic boom is worth the looming risks that come from living next door to a big box of computing power.

The concentrated investment in a small pockets of the country has created modern boomtowns in places that have spent the last few decades reeling from

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