Posts that deal broadly with the physical, mental, and intellectual health of communities.

Crunch Time on Data Centers

Data Centers seem to be on everyone's mind these days, primarily for the reason that they are very much on the mind of our Republican governor. He is an unabashed advocate for this industry and, as John Doyle describes, is willing to relax the regulations and oversight that every other kind of business has to abide by. Are we going to trust the data centers to play nice in our communities out of the goodness of their silicon hearts?

Public Schools as Community Anchors

The WV legislature has been giving much attention to the HOPE Scholarship program, expanding its scope and operations significantly. At the same time the legislature has been reluctant to strengthen public education in the state. Jim Bauman believes this imbalance is setting public education up for failure, which will almost certainly have serious negative consequences for local communities.

Door Knocking and Data Centers

Stewart Acuff gives an on-the-ground or, rather, a front-door perspective on what folks in Jefferson County feel about data centers. He goes on to contrast the negative attitude of citizens for these "damn" data centers with the governor's and Republican legislators' open arms policy toward bringing them into the state.