Business · The Atlantic Technology
One of the Victorian mansions long since abandoned by the old lumber barons is open for tours
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Clinton, Iowa, is topographically flat and economically declining.
Key facts
- Clinton’s mayor, Scott Maddasion, told me that the project could bring $20 million in annual property taxes to a city with a $24 million budget
- It later emerged that an international developer called Quality Technology Services (QTS), owned by the trillion-dollar private-equity firm Blackstone, planned to build one of the country’s largest
- The scale was almost unimaginable: 1,100 acres, or 832 football fields—about the size of Central Park
- Kevin Bradley of Clintonians Against Data Centers observed that this many Americans haven’t agreed on anything since 9/11: “This is affecting all of them—rich, middle-class, and poor
Summary
Clinton has shrunk to about 24,000 people, and the town center, along the Mississippi River, feels nearly empty. In January, a Clintonian named Stephen Figg, who owns a small firm that builds technological infrastructure, including for data centers, heard from a customer that a broker was making inquiries about buying farmland on the west side, north of Highway 30. He learned that the project would border his house on two sides and come to within 65 feet of his well. For almost two years, city officials, utility companies, and a pro-business nonprofit, Grow Clinton, had been in discussions about the construction of a data center in Clinton. Theresa Andrews, a quality analyst at a chemical company, had heard a rumor in mid-March about a development planned for the cornfields in her area, but she’d blown it off.
This was how the Data-Center Rebellion of 2026 came to Clinton, Iowa. He imagined playing in the yard with his 9-year-old daughter and worrying what their colossal new neighbor might be doing to his family’s health.