I’ve been writing pretty extensively on the role that AI data centers are having in rural communities here in the Southeast of the United States, but this one literally hits home… I grew up in Marion County, SC (population of around 28,000 total now) and this sort of intentional action is infuriating and anti-democratic to say the least…
Data Centers Are Expanding Quietly Into Black Rural America – Capital B News:
As a rare winter storm bore down on South Carolina, bringing conditions that historically paralyze the state for days, local officials in a rural county quietly pushed through a massive $2.4 billion data center without most residents knowing it was even on the table.
“There was a public meeting, which most were unaware of,” Jessie Chandler, a resident of rural Marion County, told Capital B, referring to a Jan. 22 council meeting. “I know legally they had to announce the public meeting within a certain time frame for all of us to attend, but most of the county [was] preparing for this winter storm, which we know firsthand will affect us all because it has before.”
Marion County officials confirmed that the council signed a nondisclosure agreement, which barred their ability to make the data center public. On the agenda prior to the council meeting, the line item for the vote was called “Project Liberty,” but it did not list details of the project.
The pattern residents of this majority-Black rural county are experiencing is not isolated.