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Loudoun County, Virginia, in suburban Washington, D.C., claims the highest concentration of data centers anywhere in the world. Data Center Alley, as some people call it, started growing in the 1990s. The first wave of internet giants began opening offices there, along a backbone of fiber networks. America Online put its headquarters in Loudoun. And between 1990 and 2000, the county’s population nearly doubled.
“When we were gaining about 1,000 people a month, putting a strain on local services and — a lot of new residents, a lot of new school students,” remembered Robert Wertz. He’s been Loudoun County’s commissioner of the revenue (basically the chief tax assessor) since 2004…