Resisting high tech industrialization in exurban northern Virginia

The Washington Post reported a few days ago on a land use conflict out of northern Virginia, in particular exurban Prince William County northwest of the District of Columbia and adjacent to Loudon County.  Antonio Olivo writes about a group of landowners in what is locally known as the "rural crescent" of the county who are trying to sell their land for use as a server farm.  This has created controversy among others residents and land owners who say they have moved to this area in order to live a rural lifestyle, some of them escaping the scrum of the District of Columbia in retirement.  Here's the story's lede:  

Residents along Pageland Lane once would have scoffed at the idea of their farms and regal brick homes becoming the site of a massive data center complex, given all the years of fighting to keep their rural oasis free of Northern Virginia’s relentless growth.

But after a string of defeats that has left their Prince William County neighborhood filled with traffic and towering transmission lines, those residents are now hoping to sell their land so it can become a 2,100-acre hub to the world’s Internet traffic.

“It’s just gotten worse and worse,” said Page Snyder, 71, who grew up on the farm she owns near a Civil War battle site and a sprawling retirement village whose development she and her neighbors opposed. “Basically, we’ve just thrown in the towel.”

Their effort to convince the county to change its land use policy in a portion of western Prince William, where most types of new development have been restricted, sparked a fierce backlash in the broader community — pulling even documentary filmmaker Ken Burns into a larger debate about the changing identity of the fast-growing county that, elsewhere, is struggling with crowded schools and widening pockets of poverty.

Another story about rural data centers, the one out West in Oregon, is here.  

An interesting aspect of this Washington Post piece is something I have seen in California, near Sacramento where I live.  In El Dorado County, for example, just to the east of Sacramento County, one often sees candidates signs with messages like "Keep El Dorado County Rural."  One rarely sees unpacked what this means policy-wise, for example, but it seems to a be a slogan that resonates with many voters.  Another post on the topic is here.