“Clinton, Iowa, is topographically flat and economically declining. The sawmills that made the city rich in the late 19th century have been repurposed as a museum. One of the Victorian mansions long since abandoned by the old lumber barons is open for tours, but tourists are scarce. Clinton has shrunk to about 24,000 people, and the town center, along the Mississippi River, feels nearly empty. On the west side, miles of deep-green corn and soy fields are crisscrossed with transmission wires and zoned for heavy industrial use. The city’s economic activity includes corn processing, pet-food production, and methamphetamines. With available land and a dire need for investment, Clinton seems like the perfect place for a gigantic data center.” Well, it seemed perfect to everyone except Clintonians. Instead, the town of Clinton is the latest site where one of the most quickly formed and widely supported partyline-crossing political movements is taking place. “The meteoric emergence of the data-center rebellion is a response to the speed and scale of construction, which in turn reflect the sudden ubiquity of generative and agentic AI. President Trump’s policy has been to turn everything about the technology, including data-center construction, over to private industry ... But on this issue, most of Trump’s base remains angry and opposed to him.” A local newspaper editor described the way the issue has formed unlikely partnerships. “Outside of this, there’s no way in hell these people are talking to each other.”
THANKS TO NEXTDRAFT by Dave Pell for this article which I "borrowed".
