Dean Jackson is a contributing editor at Tech Policy Press.
Bowling Green, Ohio was once an oil town. Situated south of Toledo on Interstate 75, it is part of a region formerly called the “Great Black Swamp,” carved into the Earth by ice-age glaciers. After the War of 1812, the United States seized the swamp, expelled the Native American tribes that lived there, then drained it. The remaining soil made fruitful farmland, but it was the discovery of petroleum and natural gas in the late nineteenth century that briefly turned the city into a glass manufacturing center, earning it the nickname “The Crystal City.”
Then the gas ran out.
Today, Bowling Green is a college town of 30,000 people and one of many Ohio communities affected by another booming industry: data center development. In April, Meta announced plans to build a 715,000 square foot data center campus just north of the city, in Middleton township…