Developers are looking for the path of least resistance to build their data center projects.
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Datacenter developers are increasingly planning projects in unincorporated county land, and it's not an accident. Outside city limits, they can sidestep city council approvals, municipal zoning votes, and urban land-use reviews. This is redrawing the map of where large-scale AI… pic.twitter.com/BUEyhv52aV May 8, 2026
Because of this, AI hyperscalers are looking for regions that offer speedier permit approvals, and they apparently see this in the rural areas surrounding towns and cities. Because these are administered directly by the county, developers remove one regulatory layer from the many that they must go through to put up power-hungry infrastructure. Many town and city councils have been becoming increasingly hostile towards these projects, with the community pressuring boards to disapprove applications and even replace council members who have previously said yes to projects.
Building in areas further from population centers likely means that developers will have to spend more on infrastructure to connect their projects to the power grid and water supply. However, it seems that they consider this a worthwhile expense if they can get their approvals at a much faster rate and get their projects online much sooner. We’ve seen this move in some high-profile data center projects recently — Utah approved a 9GW data center in the unincorporated land in Box Elder County , while Meta is building a 7GW data center in rural Northern Louisiana with its own natural gas power plants. One Kentucky farming family even received a $26 million offer for 600 acres of their land — seven times higher than the average land value in the area — although they declined it and said that they would rather “stay and hold and feed a nation.”
Local political revolts threaten to derail US data center projects
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/ai-data-center-developers-target-rural-territory-to-bypass-city-construction-bans-and-regulations-rural-locations-allow-sites-to-bypass-city-council-approvals-rezoning-votes-land-use-reviews-and-reduce-public-scrutiny#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/subscription
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.