How this Obscure 19th Century Feud Set the Rules of the Data Center Game Today
When it comes to data centers, this 19th century debate is having a lasting impact in town halls and for county commissions across the country.
Economic Development
Job creation, downtown revitalization, workforce training, small business, and incentives.
Reading list: Economic Development
Reporting by other newsrooms, summarized and linked
Reading list·Route Fifty
Early state pilots suggest agentic AI can speed up permits and prescriptions
A new playbook catalogs early agentic-AI experiments in Virginia, Utah, and Boston, including one pilot state officials say found $1.4 billion in annual savings and cut permit times by nearly 80%.
Reading list·The Hechinger Report
A small Alaska town used a $1M windfall to fix its child care desert
Seward, Alaska put a one-time cruise-line donation into child care instead of just housing, and licensed slots rose 150% in five years.
Reading list·Route Fifty
Nevada's SNAP fraud-detection program saved $300,000 in two months, as states brace for new federal cost-sharing rules
A civic tech nonprofit's caseworker toolkit points to state efforts, including Nevada's data-analytics program to catch erroneous SNAP payments, as models for handling looming federal cost shifts.
Reading list·Route Fifty
South Bend built a digital services division over a decade by banking early wins for political capital
The Indiana city's digital services director explains how small early projects created the credibility and budget support needed to sustain longer-term modernization work.
Reading list·Route Fifty
California built a public tracker for AI job loss and so far it finds almost none
The state's unemployment agency and a university lab match jobless claims against AI task-exposure scores, and the reporting says the only moving line is claims from college-educated workers in high-exposure jobs.
Reading list·Route Fifty
San Jose trained a seventh of its workforce in AI by building the course itself
The reporting says more than 1,000 city employees have finished an in-house program run with San José State University since 2024, though what is measured so far is enrollment rather than results.