Danny heads to Nashville to emcee a panel hosted by Stand Up Nashville, which has assembled “The Avengers” of the data center fight in the American South. But Nashville has meaningful data center regulations already in place — why is this activist group convening such a powerful panel in a city that appears to have it figured out? First, the Nashville community is demanding more, and who is Stand Up Nashville to rest on its laurels? And second, for the data center fight to succeed, it must grow from a local fight to a statewide, and even a regional one. In talking with these Tennessee changemakers, including a charismatic young legislator making good trouble in the Tennessee House, Danny finds once again that Big Tech’s efforts to divide and isolate us are actually building bridges to bring us together.

In this episode, we hear from:

• KeShaun Pearson: Director of Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP)
• Shani Glapion: Organizer with Stand Up Nashville
• Representative Aftyn Behn: Representing district 51 in the Tennessee House of Representatives
• Christopher Mitchell: Director of ILSR’s Community Broadband initiative
• Odessa Kelly: Executive Director, Stand Up Nashville
• Elena Schlossberg: Executive Director, Coalition to Protect Prince William County
• Trey Bussey: Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC)
• Abre' Conner: Director of the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at the NAACP

Links & Resources:

• Southern Environmental Law Center (Trey Bussey’s Organization): https://www.selc.org/
• Protect our Aquifer (Sarah Houston’s Organization): https://www.protectouraquifer.org/
• Coalition to Protect Prince William County (Elena Schlossberg’s Organization): https://protectpwc.org/
• Memphis NAACP (Abre Conner’s Organization): https://naacpmemphis.org/
• Memphis Citizens against Pollution (KeShaun Pearson’s Organization): https://www.memphiscap.org/
• Stand Up Nashville: https://standupnashville.org/
• Aftyn Behn’s website: https://www.aftynbehn.com/
• Interview with Justin Pearson about the Tennessee Three story: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/politics/justin-j-pearson-his-high-profile-public-persecution

Danny gets an intriguing email from Joe Cuccio, a photographer on a years-long mission to document data centers and the physical infrastructure of the digital cloud. When Joe visits central Ohio on his travels, he takes Danny into the field to photograph the data centers of New Albany, a Columbus suburb. During the outing, Danny and Joe encounter more than just ugly, dystopic buildings. From the strange public/private billionaire history of New Albany to the fear tactics tech companies employ to hide the impacts of data centers, the photo shoot is far from routine. Despite the challenges, Joe and Danny discover that data centers can bring communities together, even as they try to keep people apart.

In this episode, we hear from:

Joe Cuccio: a visual artist based between Boston, MA and The Bronx, NY. concerned with how technology and time alter relationships. Learn more: https://www.joecucciophotography.com/

Resources:

Joe Cuccio’s New Farmers Almanac // https://www.joecucciophotography.com/

Unbuffered episode on Flock cameras // https://ilsr.org/article/community-broadband-networks/flock-off-episode-23-of-unbuffered/

How Les Wexner transformed New Albany, Ohio // https://finance-commerce.com/2019/05/how-vicotria-secrets-les-wexner-transformed-new-albany-ohio/

Organic Maps app // https://organicmaps.app/

This is it, the final episode! Danny gives us his closing arguments, reflecting on all he’s learned about the data center fight in communities across the United States. We listen in on Danny’s conversation with prolific author and tech critic Cory Doctorow about the centaur/reverse centaur theory of how we use technology and how technology uses us. And, we take another quick trip to some of the communities we’ve visited along the way: Data Center Alley in Northern Virginia, Davis, West Virginia, and Memphis, Tennessee, to get the latest on their fights. When it’s all said and done, the greatest lesson from the data center clashes may be in the value of agency, and that the way to protect communities from harmful data centers is to ensure that technology serves communities, not the other way around.

In this episode, we hear from:

Cory Doctorow: Science fiction author, activist and journalist whose recent books include “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It” and “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide To Life After AI.”

Nikki Forrester: Helped launch Tucker United, now serves as the director of communications and spokesperson, lives in Tucker County, WV, and is a journalist.

Elena Schlossenberg: Our local tour guide, and deeply involved in grassroots organizing in Prince William County and Loudoun County. She has a deep knowledge of land-use management and serves as the executive director of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County.

Amber Sherman: Local policy organizer in Memphis.

Delegate John McAuliff: Recently elected Delegate for Fauquier and Loudoun counties in Northern Virginia, flipping the seat by running largely on data center regulation.

Samuel Black: Award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist working with More Perfect Union. He covers tech, labor, energy, finance, housing, and U.S. politics.

Resources:

Corruption is Driving Up Your Electricity Bill

Cory Doctorow’s blog, Craphound

Samuel Black’s More Perfect Union coverage from Boxtown

Local coverage from Tucker County about Fundamental Data’s visit, and how local leaders reacted

The latest updates from Prince William County about the Data Center Gateway case

A tool tracking every data center moratorium

Throughout this season, we've learned about the threats and harms data centers pose to local communities. But is there a better way to build this tech infrastructure? On this episode, Danny invites energy, broadband, and local business experts to discuss how we can build and regulate data centers in ways that keep agency within local communities. From BYONCE (Bring Your Own New Clean Energy) to transparency, and from antitrust action to community-scaled, locally owned data centers, this episode breaks down all the ways we can create a better future — one where local communities have control over what happens next.

In this episode, we hear from:

Stacy Mitchell: Writer, strategist, policy advocate, co-executive director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, with a focus on the importance of small, independent businesses.

Chris Mitchell: Program director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who is a leading national expert on community networks, Internet access, and local broadband policies, and host of the Unbuffered podcast.

John Farrell: Co-executive director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and leads the organization’s work on energy systems, including duties as host of the Local Energy Rules podcast.

Resources:

Institute for Local Self-Reliance - The Policies Communities Need to Confront the AI Data Center Race

Good Jobs First - Shutting Down Data Center Subsidies

Steph Speirs on TikTok - Solving the AI Power Problem

AI Now Policy Institute - North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit

If you’re anything like Building Local Power’s host, Danny Caine, you’ve seen your electric bill creep up and are wondering: are data centers to blame for this? Danny sets out to answer this and other burning questions about the murky way in which Big Tech’s data center arms race, public utilities, and electric bills intersect. Bringing his unanswered questions to energy experts, his neighbors, and his trusty dad, Danny aims to discover exactly how utilities make money from data center development, and if there’s any hope for our electric bills.

Guest voices + context:

Kevin Caine: Dad of Building Local Power host, Danny Caine, and resident of Cleveland, Ohio

John Farrell: Co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and director of the Energy Democracy Initiative

Cathy Kunkel: Energy consultant at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)

Elena Schlossberg: Executive director of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County

Andrew Chow: TIME technology correspondent who has extensively covered AI and data centers at the intersection of race over the past few years.

Resources:

Data Center Watch Briefing

Ohio's electric bills are high — and so are utility CEO salaries

The Policies Communities Need to Confront the AI Data Center Race

North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit: State and Local Policy Interventions to Stop Rampant AI Data Center Expansion - AI Now Institute

The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers in the South - MediaJustice

Proposed Prince William data center prompts protest letter to Jeff Bezos - The Washington Post

Outcry grows over proposed Prince William data center - The Washington Post

Some residents of the Boxtown neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee, didn’t know Elon Musk was building a huge data center nearby until they saw city and Chamber of Commerce officials hyping the deal. A historic Black neighborhood founded by freedmen after the Civil War, Boxtown is one recent example of an old pattern: corporations siting polluting, noisy facilities in Black or poor neighborhoods, which the corporations see as less likely to mount a resistance to their plans. We chronicle this history, finding useful context in the decades-long fight against trash incinerators. We also learn what Memphis is doing to fight back, from citizen journalism to liberation science.

Guest voices + context:

Dr. Sacoby Wilson: Director of The Health, Environmental, and Economic Justice Lab, and Professor in Global, Environmental and Occupational Health. Focuses on environmental health science, including water quality analysis and air pollution studies, and works closely with community-based organizations, such as those in Memphis. Collaborated with Representative Justin Pearson on work to advocate for Black Communities in the fight against data centers and environmental racism.

Andrew Chow: TIME technology correspondent who has extensively covered AI and data centers at the intersection of race over the past few years.

Jennifer Kunze: Maryland Organizing Director at Clean Water Action, who took Danny on a tour of the Baltimore Incinerator.

Brenda Platt: Director of ILSR’s Composting for Community Initiative

Amber Sherman: Local policy organizer in Memphis

Learn More:

Data Center Watch Briefing

Inside Memphis' Battle Against Elon Musk’s xAI Data Center -Andrew Chow, Time

How the AI Boom Sparked a Housing Crisis in One Texas City -Andrew Chow, Time

From Neighborhood Streets to City Hall with Zac Blanchard - Building Local Power

Memphis Community Against Pollution

We Went to the Town Elon Musk Is Poisoning - More Perfect Union

When a notice appeared in a local newspaper about a company applying for an air quality permit for a power plant, it set off alarm bells in the small West Virginia town of Davis. After residents realized that a major data center project, enabled by West Virginia’s hastily passed state preemption bill, was being pushed through without anyone knowing about it, the community took action. A coalition of artists, outdoor enthusiasts, and generations-deep mining families formed Tucker United, and we met with them to learn about the state of the fight: why Davis, West Virginia; is the proposed reduction in state income tax and influx of data center revenue actually going to reach the local community; and how do they make sure their voice is heard by local and state government and that corporations are held accountable to them in the face of a politics that is pushing an “abundance” agenda of development with few guardrails?

In this episode, we hear from:

• Linda Bilsens Brolis: Associate Director for Education for the Composting for Community Initiative, who first told us about this story, and lives in Davis.
• Nikki Forrester: Helped launch Tucker United, now serves as the Director of Communications and spokesperson, lives in Tucker County, West Virginia, and is a journalist.
• Mayor Alan Tomson: Mayor of Davis, West Virginia, who was alerted about the project and helped organize the initial town hall meeting that led to Tucker United. He shares what inspired him to move from his life as a career Army Officer in D.C. to Davis.
• Cris Parque: lead organizer of Tucker United
• Shaena Crossland: member of Tucker United

Welcome to Building Local Power’s “The Data Centers Are Coming,” where we journey to some of the most active places in the cross-country battle over data centers in our local communities. We start at the epicenter: Data Center Alley in Loudoun County, Virginia. This once semi-rural community has now been transformed by Big Tech’s sprawling data centers, sparking a fight for land, autonomy, and transparency from local residents. What does it feel like living there now? How is it impacting home values, affordability, energy and water usage, electric bills, and the overall well-being of the people who live nearby? We took a road trip to find out.

In this episode we hear from:

• Elena Schlossenberg: Our local tour guide, and deeply involved in grassroots organizing in Prince William County and Loudoun County. She has a deep knowledge of land use management and is the Executive Director of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County.
• Greg Pirio: A longtime Sterling, VA resident, Greg’s home literally sits across the street from a Vantage data center. Greg is an artist and has become an unlikely activist, organizing his neighbors to advocate for local solutions and demand accountability for the relentless noise pollution impacting their daily lives.