We Mapped Rural
#DataCenter Development – and Opposition. Here’s What We Found
Though the majority of data centers are located in urban or suburban areas, rural communities face unique challenges in the data center development landscape.
by Julia Tilton and Sarah Alexander Melotte June 29, 2026
Excerpt: "Though the majority of in-progress
#datacenters are in metropolitan areas, our reporting and data analysis show that large data centers, characteristic of the current boom, represent outsized investments in rural areas. Smaller populations often mean smaller tax bases and fewer government officials, leaving rural communities with fewer resources to negotiate deals with developers or weather the tax revenue fallout after facility closures.
The Geography of the Data Center Boom
"The following map shows the number of data centers in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan, or rural, counties. As of June 2026, approximately 30 of the 529 data centers currently in operation are located in rural counties, representing about 6% of operating data centers. At the time of this analysis, 16 rural data centers were either recently approved or currently under construction, representing about 12% of all in-progress projects.
"The Daily Yonder uses a county-level definition of rural derived from the Office of Management and Budget (
#OMB). All counties outside of a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) are classified as rural for the purposes of this analysis.
Information on the locations of data centers comes from
#FracTrackerAlliance, an organization providing the public with interactive tools to understand
#oil,
#gas,
#petrochemical, and data center development across the country.
"While there are many other datasets out there tracking data center development, few of them are publicly accessible, making a complete analysis difficult. We chose
#FracTracker because of the organization’s methods for obtaining data and the monthly frequency with which it updates the database. We saw that frequency as a key metric for tracking this fast-evolving issue. FracTracker obtains information from crowd sourcing, media announcements, partner datasets, and public records. While the organization is primarily focused on proposed data centers, it is slowly adding existing data centers to the database.
"That means that the data used in this analysis is preliminary. Because it is a work in progress, FracTracker encourages readers to share new and updated information about data centers in their own communities via a submission form."
Learn more:
https://dailyyonder.com/we-mapped-rural-data-center-development-and-opposition-heres-what-we-found/2026/06/29/
#USDatacenterMap #BigOilAndGas #BigData #DatacenterResistance #USPol #RuralAreas #AISucks
