The Outstater
Pimping for Data Centers
“The idea is to get back to a society where people can live together as neighbors and not just as wage slaves or bureaucratic cogs.” — G.K. Chesterton
LOOK, I LIKE PROGRESS as much as the next guy but sacrificing local autonomy is stupid. There are nine distinct regions of Indiana, each with its own charm and value; the Legislature would be wise — economically and politically — to preserve them, not standardize them.
There is a failed model for such a move — consolidated public schools. Back in the 1970s we put control of education under the Collective Bargaining Act and nullified the different strategies of Indiana’s 250 or so school districts. Do I need to tell you how that worked out?
Nonetheless, several measures introduced to the House would structurally shift land-use authority from local governments to the state. In doing so, legislators would yield to lobbyist pressure to “lower procedural friction,” that is, reduce local discretion.
They want to ease the siting of data centers, concentrated animal feed operations and utility-scale solar farms, especially near residential and rural communities. Here are the core mechanisms of their legislation:;
- Limits local authority over setbacks, design standards, lot requirements and use conditions.
- Enables projects to advance based on comprehensive plans, reducing the role of public hearings.
- Weakens municipalities’ ability to negotiate mitigation for infrastructure, buffers or impacts.
- Political and economic approvals can precede site plans, environmental detail or full public input.
Yes, it sounds like Soviet agriculture and Hoosiers should have no part of it. Indiana has what everyone in the nation wants: high-trust independent communities, livable neighborhoods, school choice, a business-friendly culture and interesting weather. Certain legislators, though, would take all of that for granted.
All of which raises a question posed by those who have thought deeply about the relationship between large entities and community life — Pope Pope Pius X, authors G.K. Chesterton and Henry David Thoreau, economists E.F. Schumacher and John Medaille, and most recently the political scientist John Putnam. (See the fall 2024 issue of The Indiana Policy Review.)
It is just this: Why is the concentration of wealth and power a bad thing when it is done by monarchs, despots and centralized governments but a good thing, or at least a tolerable thing, when it is done by corporations?
We can be flattered that big business sees promise here for its data centers, feed lots and such. But it can negotiate with individual Hoosier communities, not pimp out our legislators. — tcl
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