Lessons from Data Center Alley

What Northern Virginia Teaches Us About Data Centers

Roughly 70 percent of global internet traffic flows through data centers in Virginia, with most concentrated in the northern part of the state nicknamed “Data Center Alley.” In a new blog post, Roosevelt Fellow Daniel Driscoll explores what this infrastructure has meant for air quality and energy costs in Virginia, and the lessons policymakers can learn as data center development across the country rapidly expands. 

“There is, at times, a mismatch between the concerns, struggles, and grievances of citizens and the choices of their leaders,” Driscoll writes. “Virginia—the canary in the coal mine—offers a cautionary tale for moving too quickly: Residents are bearing unequal costs while unaccounted-for emissions increase.” 

Read the blog post: Virginia’s Data Center Alley Is a Cautionary Tale for Equity and Climate

And watch the recent conversation between former National Economic Council Deputy Director Sameera Fazili and Roosevelt President and CEO Elizabeth Wilkins about how local communities are fighting for democratic decision-making around proposed data centers:

What else we’re up to

• Click to Cancel is becoming reality in New York City. The Mamdani administration is banning deceptive subscription practices that trap people into recurring payments. According to analysis from Roosevelt’s Brad Lipton and Noa Rosinplotz, this move will save New Yorkers both time and money—up to $162.5 million and 600,000 hours per year.  
• We don’t talk enough about Vermont’s childcare system. In 2023, Vermont’s Act 76 expanded childcare subsidies, invested in supply, and brought the state to a near-universal system. In a new Q&A, Roosevelt’s Lena Bilik speaks with Sarah Kenney, an organizer with the organization Let’s Grow Kids, about how this popular policy was designed, won, and implemented, and what national-level policymakers can learn from Vermont about making public childcare happen.
  • Check out the interview series for more: How Childcare Happens: Lessons from Frontline Implementers
• We can solve the challenges facing Social Security. Roosevelt’s Stephen Nuñez joined the Neon Liberalism podcast to discuss what policymakers will have to do to not only save, but strengthen and expand Social Security:
  • “We’re nowhere near the possibility frontier with where we’re at, given the economy that we have,” Nuñez said. “So I think we can do a lot better.”
  • Read Nuñez’s myth-busting brief from earlier this year: “Will Social Security Run Out?” Is the Wrong Question: How Lawmakers Can Protect Beneficiaries and Strengthen OASI
• Big corporations are trying to act like governments. “Corporations are successfully seceding from public control through the combination of structural power and various forms of jurisdictional fragmentation,” writes legal scholar Brian Highsmith in a new paper.
  • Using the examples of Amazon’s HQ2, Elon Musk’s Starbase, Texas, and others, Highsmith explores the outsize power of big business. Read the brief: The New Corporate Enclaves 

What we’re talking about