Is this the future of America?
Loudoun County, Virginia, transformed its economy by repurposing abandoned dot-com era infrastructure into a global hub for data centers. This shift allowed the county to become a critical node for the world's internet traffic.
Why it matters
The story illustrates how regional economic development can leverage existing physical infrastructure to adapt to the digital age.
In 2007, the US was on the cusp of an economic recession, and Buddy Rizer was tasked with finding Loudoun County, Virginia, a new way to make money. Rizer’s earlier career as a radio DJ didn’t exactly make him an obvious candidate to find a solution, but he was looking for what he called a “real job” and stumbled into a role at Loudoun’s economic development authority. This new gig came with urgency thanks to the bursting of the housing bubble: More than 80 percent of the county’s revenue came from residential real estate. The goal, at the time, was to raise the commercial tax base from about 19 percent of revenue to something like 23 percent, Rizer recalls. Today, just over half of the county’s tax revenue comes from commercial sources.
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