Support Stack Systems · Black Towns Prospecting project Compiled: 2026-08-02 · Status: Append-only. Research, not legal, financial, real-estate, or investment advice. Method of record: BROCKOVICH-ZIP-ANALYSIS_2026-08-02.md · Full per-site reports live in Turborepo/apps/directory/src/content/datacenter-reports/.

What this is

We took every data-center location reported by residents to the Erin Brockovich AI Data Center community map (8,837 pins), joined each pin to the Black population of its own ZIP code (U.S. Census ACS 2023), and found 75 majority-Black ZIP codes carrying data-center reports. We then ran a full field investigation on 74 of them — one report each, ~190,000 words, ~3,750 sourced links — verifying every finding against local news, county and city records, utility filings, and state regulators. Nothing was taken from the map on faith; the map only told us where to look.

The unit of analysis is the neighborhood, not the city. That correction — made by Sadie mid-project — is the whole reason this report exists. A city-level or county-level filter would have missed most of what follows, because the pattern is precisely that data centers land in the Black part of an otherwise-whiter place.

The headline finding

Across 74 majority-Black ZIP codes in 20 states, the same facilities keep landing in the same kind of place, and the same handful of tactics keep being used to get them approved. This is not 74 unrelated local zoning stories. It is one national pattern with 74 data points.

The clearest proof is Cuthbert, Georgia (ZIP 39840, 72% Black, population 4,576). A bitcoin/AI mining data center has been operating since September 2025 — no public hearing, no council vote, no ordinance on record. The same operator was voted down in three whiter counties (Pierce, Coffee, Monroe). Cuthbert never got the vote. One resident pin. It would be invisible to any method that starts from a list of big Black cities — and it is the thesis of this entire project in a single town.

Seven tactics that repeat across states

Every one of these is documented in the per-site reports with sources and dates.

1. Rezone before you name it

The land is rezoned to industrial before the words "data center" are public, so by the time residents find out, it's permitted by right and the hearing is over.

• Valdosta, GA — 719 acres rezoned to M-1 in July 2025 where data centers are permitted by right; the real hearing happened before the use was disclosed.
• Clarksdale, MS — 648 acres rezoned to light industrial against the Black Roundyard neighborhood, with no named operator, no disclosed megawattage, and no disclosed power source.

2. Approve it under a non-disclosure agreement

The public never sees the deal because officials signed an NDA.

• Marion County, SC — "Project Liberty," a $2.4B campus, approved 6–1 during a rare January snowstorm, three readings in two weeks, under an NDA that kept "data center" off the agenda. It later collapsed when the developer couldn't source power.
• Bessemer, AL — the released NDA required officials to destroy records.

3. Call it something else to skip the hearing

Reclassify the facility so notice and public-hearing rules don't trigger.

• Miami, FL — Iron Mountain's "MIA-1" was permitted as a "telecommunications hub," dodging rezoning and the 500-ft public-notice requirement, and at 16 MW sits just under Florida SB 484's 50 MW threshold for ratepayer and water protections.
• Spartanburg, SC — a $2.8B campus with a ~450 MW on-site gas plant processed as a "minor land development" to skip public review (SELC is suing).

4. Exempt the project from the rules it triggered — or put it where the rules don't reach

• Birmingham, AL — the Nebius campus is exempt from the 20 data-center regulations Birmingham passed 6–3 in direct response to it.
• Hampton, GA — five sites in one small city; Henry County has no jurisdiction inside Hampton, so its 1,000-ft residential setback ordinance doesn't protect these residents.
• Repeatedly, county moratoria cover only unincorporated land, while the "by-right" city ordinance abuts the Black neighborhoods (Fayetteville NC, Rocky Mount NC, and others).

5. Let the developer help write the law

• Jones County, GA — records show the developer editing county legislation by email for months before it passed.

6. Promise jobs that don't materialize

• Rocky Mount, NC — a 900 MW / $19.2B gas-fired campus; organized opposition documented 69 permanent jobs against the 500 claimed.
• Hayneville, AL — a 1,500 MW campus projected by residents to yield ~9 jobs for county residents.
• Southfield, MI — a 100 MW campus approved over heavy opposition for 35 jobs.

7. Race the tax-break clock

• Alabama — the state's 30-year abatement expires for approvals after January 1, 2027. That single deadline explains the compressed, rushed timelines across all six Alabama sites — and the same abatement-cliff dynamic drives urgency in several other states.

Water and power — who pays, who goes without

Water. Again and again, the facility wants water a stressed system cannot spare:

• Prichard, AL (97.2% Black, the highest in the study) — a data center proposed inside the Africatown Safety Zone, in a city whose water utility is in court receivership, defaulted on $55M, and loses more than half its treated water.
• Bessemer, AL — the water authority says it cannot supply the requested 2 MGD without major upgrades.
• Shreveport, LA — the confirmed AWS+STACK campus (ZIP 71119) is permitted for 7.5 million gallons/day on a water system already under a federal sewer consent decree, amid a citywide boil advisory.
• St. George, SC — Google's water numbers were so opaque a resident had to sue to see them.
• Vicksburg, MS — an AWS $3B campus surrounds Dana Road Elementary School on three sides.

Power. The nationally significant fight is who pays for the new load. The reports document the emerging "large-load" rate classes and dockets built to shift data-center costs off ordinary households — and, critically, which of these Black neighborhoods' utilities have NOT adopted that protection:

• Virginia — Dominion's new GS-5 rate class (≥25 MW, effective Jan 2027).
• Ohio — AEP's tariff protects central Ohio only; FirstEnergy (Cleveland), AES (Dayton), and Duke (Cincinnati) had no equivalent as of mid-2026 — the gap falls on exactly these ZIPs.
• Wisconsin — PSCW forced data centers to pay full cost (docket 6630-TE-113), but a new Oak Creek gas plant still lands in Milwaukee County.
• On-site methane gas turbines appear where the grid can't keep up — most infamously Memphis / Boxtown, where xAI ran as many as 69 unpermitted turbines in a 94.8%-Black ZIP with a heavy asthma burden.

Repeat players

Some developers appear in multiple Black neighborhoods across state lines — a pattern worth tracking as this work continues:

• QTS (Blackstone-owned): Fayetteville GA ("Excalibur," 250 MW), Blakely GA ("Blue Hole"), Bessemer AL, Henrico VA.
• Metrobloks: Indianapolis (46218, lead-contaminated Black neighborhood, in litigation) and Southfield MI — two Black neighborhoods, two states.
• Meta: Montgomery AL, Covington GA, Huntsville AL (operating/expanding).
• Google: St. George SC, West Memphis AR ($4B).
• AWS: Vicksburg MS ($3B), Shreveport LA ($12B with STACK).
• xAI: Memphis TN (Boxtown), with expansion pressure across the river into West Memphis AR.

The honest nulls

19 of the 74 ZIPs had no data center sited in the ZIP itself (a few are "adjacent-impact" zones where the facility sits one ZIP over). We report those as clearly as the hits, because a documented absence is a real finding and protects residents from false alarm:

• New Orleans / Gentilly and Baltimore — citywide moratoria already in place.
• Bishopville SC, South Holland IL, the Milwaukee ZIPs, Jackson TN, Lexa AR — no facility found; residents armed with contacts to verify for themselves.
• Lexa, AR carries the study's most important caveat: the ZCTA is 54.3% Black, but the incorporated town center is majority-white — a reminder that ZIP-level data has limits, and we say so out loud.

We also corrected several resident mislabels rather than repeat them: 60155 is Broadview IL, not DeKalb (the real Meta campus is in DeKalb County); 48341 is Pontiac MI, not Milford; the "Maysville GA" pin is Lithonia; and we rejected search results that tried to hand us officials from Covington Washington, Lancaster Pennsylvania, and Jackson Mississippi for the wrong towns.

What every report gives a resident

Each of the 74 reports ends with a "Find Out For Yourself" section: the city hall and clerk's direct contacts, the county commission, the utility, the state regulator's docket and comment deadline, the meeting schedule and agenda link, and a short list of specific questions to ask — all from official sources, none invented. The most time-sensitive as of this writing:

• Ellenwood, GA — Board of Commissioners hearing August 13, 2026, county staff already recommending denial.
• Alabama PSC Docket 33709 — large-load data-center contracts; comment window in early/mid August.

Master table — all 74 majority-Black ZIP reports (sorted by ZIP Black %)

Full report for each is in apps/directory/src/content/datacenter-reports/<slug>.md.

74 sites verified 2026-08-02. Statuses summarized; see each full report for nuance, sources, and contacts. Some resident-reported pins remain uncorroborated by public records and are labeled as such in their reports. This is research, not legal, financial, real-estate, or investment advice.