Who benefits when massive AI data centers come to town?

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. The AI boom has a problem. It has to be built somewhere. And to power it. Tech companies are building massive data centers.

They need land, enormous amounts of electricity, and in many cases water. In exchange, they promise jobs and community investment. But people who live in these communities are demanding to know What's this going to cost us? There's also another question, who gets to decide?

In communities from Wisconsin to Louisiana, residents say local officials are negotiating data center deals without their input. This midterm election, voters in more than 40 cities and towns across eight states will decide ballot measures on data center banks, moratoriums, and the city of the city. and requirements that residents get a vote before one is built. And Democrats and Republicans are going after their opponents for what used to be a bragging right. The ability to bring billions of dollars in investment to town.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (44 minutes, 7,416 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.