Comment by thenthenthen

There are a lot of examples of former industrial sites (rust belts) that are now redeveloped into data center sites because the infra is already partly there and the environment might be beneficial, politically, environmentally/geographically. For example many old industrial sites relied on water for cooling and transportation. This water can now be used to cool data centers. I think you are onto something though, if you depart from the history of these places and extrapolate into the future.