By Doug Kelly:
I grew up in Adrian, Michigan, about 50 miles from Defiance, Ohio. Both are farming communities with deep manufacturing roots. Both have watched good industrial jobs disappear over two decades. And now, both are among the growing number of American communities putting the brakes on data centers.
In July, the Adrian City Commission approved a temporary ban on data center proposals. Defiance has enacted a six-month pause, and voters there will consider a measure that would prohibit all but the smallest data centers. No company has even announced a project there.
To Adrian, Defiance, and other communities across the country considering outright bans, I would offer one consideration: be careful about blindly and reflexively closing the door on the next generation of investment. Communities rarely get chances this significant.
This especially matters to communities that have already watched major industries shrink or disappear, and there are far more of them than most people realize.
From 1999 through 2025, 1,547 American counties lost at least 10 percent of their manufacturing jobs, according to federal employment data. In 465 of these counties, more than half of those manufacturing jobs are gone. Together, these more than 1,500 counties have lost nearly 5 million factory jobs.
Lenawee County, where I grew up, has lost 53 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 1999. In Defiance County, manufacturing employment fell from nearly 7,000 jobs to just over 3,000, a 57 percent decline.
But data centers offer communities like these something they have spent decades trying to attract: large-scale private investment that creates good-paying jobs. Individual projects can bring billions of dollars in capital spending, years of construction work, substantial additions to the local tax base, and permanent skilled jobs in electrical systems, cooling, networking and facility operations. They also support a broader supply chain of contractors, manufacturers and service providers.
None of that means communities should accept every data center on whatever terms a developer offers. Residents are right to ask hard questions about electricity costs, water, farmland, infrastructure and tax incentives.
That is exactly why my organization, the American Edge Project, has proposed an American AI Infrastructure Compact.
The Compact is a formal agreement between communities and developers built around four basic protections:
1) Developers cover the energy and project-driven infrastructure costs required to serve them rather than shifting those costs to families and small businesses;
2) Projects responsibly manage water, siting, noise and other local impacts;
3) Communities receive meaningful information early enough for residents to have a voice; and
4) Large projects provide measurable local benefits through tax revenue, workforce opportunities, and community investment.
In exchange, developers that meet those standards receive something equally important: a clear and predictable path to build.
There are already smaller communities showing what can happen when local leaders collaborate with developers instead of simply shutting the door.
In Quincy, Washington, population 8,500, local leaders worked with data center developers to expand the tax base, while investing in water-reuse systems and other infrastructure. The result: six of Grant County’s seven largest data center taxpayers are located in Quincy, and the city’s property-tax levy rate has fallen roughly 70 percent since data centers began arriving. The expanded tax base has helped support a new high school, wastewater infrastructure, a water-reuse system and other community improvements.
In Altoona, Iowa, population 22,400, local leaders likewise chose collaboration over prohibition. Meta has invested more than $2.5 billion in its Altoona campus since 2013, employing up to 1,300 skilled trades workers at the peak of construction, supporting more than 400 permanent jobs, and providing more than $5.6 million to local schools and nonprofits. The company also paid for a sewer main, upgraded water mains and built a water tower, infrastructure that has led to 3.3 million square feet of new warehouse space in the area.
Neither community said, “Not In My Back Yard.” Instead, both worked with developers, utilities, and state officials to capture investment, while addressing local needs. That is the better model: Build wisely rather than ban blindly.
Done right, America’s AI infrastructure build out can be a win three times over: communities gain jobs, investment and a stronger tax base; developers gain certainty; and America gains the AI infrastructure needed to compete with China for global AI leadership.