Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Americana
At the edge of a section of irrigated ground on the Great Plains, you can sometimes see the history of a decision. A center pivot that ran a full circle for thirty years now stops short and backs up. Its wheel tracks end where a new set of steel transmission poles crosses the field. Two […]
What began as scattered neighborhood resistance to individual projects has become something much larger: a national backlash against the physical footprint of the AI economy. According to Data Center Watch, at least 75 data center projects worth more than $130 billion were delayed or canceled in the first quarter of 2026 alone, effectively matching the […]
Somewhere in your county, there’s a parcel that’s about to become a question. The family that farmed it for three generations has kids who moved away years ago. They’ve got their own lives, their own mortgages, their own reasons for wanting to convert that ground into something they can sell. They find a developer who’s […]
Communications, Utilities, and Energy—our CUE theme for this month—all come together in the work Michelle Moore is doing as CEO of Groundswell around the topic of community power solutions connecting renewable energy and energy efficiency with economic development, affordability, and quality of life. Her book, Rural Renaissance: Revitalizing America’s Hometowns through Clean Power (Island Press, […]
A Perfect Storm for Rural Electricity This article kicks off JCShepard.com’s October energy series, exploring how the accelerating energy transition is reshaping rural communities across North America. Across the world we are using and producing more energy of all sorts. There is also a major shift unfolding beneath the surface of that energy trend: how […]
