Billionaires Are Planning Our Future. Where Are We?

If you think Fayette County’s explosive growth in data centers and massive power infrastructure is something that has already happened and is finished, think again.

It isn’t.

The Georgia Chamber of Commerce has launched the “Georgia Digital Infrastructure Alliance,” promoting the idea of helping communities become prepared for digital infrastructure and identifying communities that are “data center ready.”

Fayette County is already there.

We know what “data center ready” looks like.

We’ve watched hundreds of acres of irreplaceable forests disappear. We’ve watched enormous industrial buildings rise beside homes, a hospital and two elementary schools. We’ve watched native plants and wildlife habitats vanish and massive electrical infrastructure reshape our landscape.

And now the QTS campus has grown from 615 acres to 928 acres.

Many residents are angry. Many are saying enough.

But anger alone won’t protect Fayette County.

Here’s what should concern every resident—especially younger people who plan to live, work and raise families here for decades to come:

The people and organizations with enormous financial and political resources are already at the table. Are we?

The Georgia Chamber is organizing to sugarcoat data centers. Developers are pursuing land and massive projects. Utilities are planning ongoing investments in power generation and transmission. Economic-development organizations are promoting growth at any cost. This is happening statewide.

Meanwhile, most Fayette County citizens are working, raising children and trying to make ends meet.

It’s easy to think that decisions about land use are made by uncaring people in government offices and there isn’t much an individual can do.

That’s exactly how communities lose their voice.

Fayette County is beginning an update of its comprehensive land-use plan next month, and public participation is being sought.

This is not just another government meeting.

The comprehensive plan helps determine what kind of development Fayette County will welcome—and what it will protect against—in the years ahead.

If you don’t want Fayette County covered by invasive data centers, substations, transmission lines and unwelcome commercial projects, this is the time to say so.

And if you’re a younger resident thinking, “What does a land-use meeting have to do with me?”—look around.

It has everything to do with you.

It affects the community where your children will go to school. The roads they will drive. The neighborhoods where you will live. The availability and cost of housing. The character of the county. The amount of traffic and commercial activity surrounding your home. And the infrastructure decisions that will shape Fayette County long after today’s developers and elected officials are gone.

If you don’t participate, you are leaving those decisions to the people who do.

We should welcome responsible economic development. But development should serve the community—not the other way around.

When extraordinarily wealthy individuals and corporations have the ability to silently assemble dozens of property parcels and bring inappropriately sited multi-billion dollar projects into our neighborhoods, citizens have every right to ask:

Who is making these decisions?  Who benefits?Who pays? And who gets to decide what Fayette County becomes?

The answer should not be whoever has the deepest pockets and most advantageous political connections; the privileged few who can afford to influence future development decisions to suit their personal agendas.

So don’t just complain about what is happening to Fayette County. Show up.

Bring your neighbors. Bring your friends who think local government doesn’t matter. Be a good example for your children. Hold the elected officials accountable for their promises to represent “we the people.”

The developers will be there.

The utilities will be there.

The economic-development interests will be there.

Will you?

Please don’t miss this rare opportunity to speak up and  “Create Your Story!” 

Visit the Planning and Zoning page at fayettecountyga.gov or call 770.305.5421 for meeting details. The first meeting is scheduled on 9.24.26 at 5pm at the BOC meeting room in the Fayette County Administration Building in Fayetteville. (Not a convenient time? Pressure them to change it.)

Signed, 
A Concerned Citizen
Fayetteville, GA