Local governments race to attract data centers, often in spite of concerns from their constituents

By: Evan Visconti

Outlets: Virginia Mercury

Published: April 24, 2026

Words: 1,646

Last Updated: 3 months, 1 week ago

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Data centers — proposed beside town centers, on generational farmlands, in view of cemeteries and next to Civil War battlegrounds across Virginia — are testing local governments’ ability to regulate industrial land use.

Concurrently, the digital facilities are tripling energy demands in Dominion Energy’s portion of the grid, resulting in the transformation of large swaths of land not only for the construction of data centers, but also for the massive infrastructure overhaul that is …

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