Morning, y’all! It’s sweater weather outside, and by “sweater weather” I mean the weather physically feels like a sweater (and everyone is sweating). A heat advisory is in place across central Georgia and parts of North Georgia today from noon to 8 p.m., and it’s going to stay soupy through the week.
Let’s get to it.
GEORGIA’S DATA CENTERS: ‘WE FULL’
Georgia has one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the world, and new research shows it’s still not growing fast enough for demand.
- Atlanta alone more than quadrupled the amount of new data center space available for companies to lease from April 2024 through March 2025, a growth rate that dwarfs its peers.
- Despite the massive growth, Atlanta’s data center market has about a 1% vacancy rate, recent figures show.
- A commercial vacancy rate of 1% is staggeringly low. For comparison, the region’s industrial vacancy rate is just below 10%. Atlanta’s struggling office market is at about 25%.
- Public backlash against the insatiable power and water demands of the cavernous computer warehouses has led municipalities to be choosier with which data center projects they allow.
🔎 READ MORE: Why experts say the demand is destabilizing
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WHAT WAS IN THAT 2024 BIOLAB FIRE PLUME?
Follow-up question: Do we really want to know? (Obviously we do. Knowledge is power, but it’s also a psychological burden.)
- New research from Georgia Tech sheds disturbing light on the September 2024 BioLab fire in Rockdale County that prompted evacuations, shelter-in-place orders and major road closures.
- The fire contained compounds from more than two dozen chemical families, including dangerous amounts of bromide, a naturally occurring element that can irritate the skin and mucus membranes.
- After the fire, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency said they detected low levels of bromide.
- However, when Tech researchers tested, they found bromide levels from the fire were “unexpectedly high.” Concentrations as far as 21 miles away in Midtown Atlanta exceeded federal acute exposure guideline levels by a threshold of four.
- Other long-term effect studies are ongoing.
- Experts agreed the situation could have been much worse if not for thousands of evacuations from the area.
🔎 READ MORE: What else researchers found
367,000
- That’s how many new homes the 11-county metro Atlanta region needs by 2035 to support estimated job and population growth, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission.
- Of those, about 116,000 homes are needed at rents below $1,300 per month.
Proponents of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, recently passed by Congress and awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature, say the affordable housing bill can help Atlanta address parts of its affordable housing crisis. The AJC Politics team asked some key players in Georgia what they thought of the legislation.
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🗳️ A long-simmering debate over property taxes could dominate some Georgia legislative elections. State Republicans say homeowners want relief. Democrats say shifting the burden of property tax is a “bait and switch” that ultimately costs middle- and low-income families.
🏠 Meanwhile, the Brookhaven City Council unanimously approved a 40% hike in the city’s property tax rate earlier this week over loud opposition from some residents, who said the city could have balanced its budget in a way that didn’t cost citizens.
🎒 Fulton is offering tuition-based enrollment to out-of-district students to attend its public high schools. Like many school districts, Fulton County is looking for ways to boost enrollment and increase funding.
NEWS BITES
Moments that have defined the World Cup in Atlanta so far
My personal defining moment: Watching my teenage nephews ride MARTA, their first public transit experience ever.
What happens when a bunch of Argentina soccer fans pour into Texas?
Lots of beef about beef between two barbecue giants. Impossible to pick a side.
Highways are buckling in Germany as parts of Europe bake in severe heat wave
Sorry, 40.8 degrees Celsius is HOW hot? (105.4 Fahrenheit. Europe may know the International System of Units better, but we know heat better and we feel for them.)
Scratching that bug bite may feel good, but this is why science says it’s a bad idea
Shut up, science.
ON THIS DATE
June 29, 1894
Amos saved the pen. Representative Cummings, of New York, this afternoon took the bill making Labor Day a national holiday to the White House and President Cleveland signed it at once. The pen and holder, a plain steel stub and wooden affair, will be sent by Mr. Cummings to Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor.
The first Labor Day was celebrated on Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City. By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday. That year, on June 28, President Grover Cleveland signed legislation establishing the first Monday in September each year a national holiday.
ONE MORE THING
Speaking of meat in Argentina, I keep a very edited list of “perfect” foods I’ve eaten. One early entry is a freshly barbecued chicken half at a ranch in Rosario, Argentina (birthplace of Lionel Messi!). I felt like a caveman discovering fire. Generations of ancestral huntresses howled as I ate. I could taste that bird’s thoughts.
Some people have convictions about meat, and I don’t mean to disrespect that. I like to imagine the chicken lived a life of freedom without fear, and that’s what made it so delicious.
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Until next time.