Jackson County, Alabama

County ranked by announced AI data-center load

Undisclosed Announced AI load

Campuses

Lead operator

Google

Resi rate Δ (TVA direct)

n/a

Home price Δ (3y)

+26.6%

Property tax Δ (3y)

+12.8%

Population (2024 ACS)

53K

Median HH income (2024 ACS)

$51,908

Key takeaways

Bridgeport had 2,264 residents at the 2020 census, down from 2,418 in 2010. The Google campus sits on the retired Widows Creek Power Plant parcel that TVA opened in 1952 and shut in September 2015 at 1,600 MW of coal-fired nameplate.Source: sources[0] (Wikipedia: Bridgeport, Alabama) + sources[1] (Wikipedia: Widows Creek Fossil Plant)
Google announced $600 million for the Widows Creek conversion in June 2015 and TVA added matching renewable capacity to the system. The site is one of 58 TVA direct-serve industrial and institutional customers, which is why no residential rate delta shows up for Jackson County.Source: sources[1] (Wikipedia: Widows Creek Fossil Plant) + sources[2] (Wikipedia: TVA)
Jackson County has 52,839 residents on a median household income of $49,454. Only 15.5% of adults over 25 hold a bachelor's degree, the lowest education share in this batch and a step below the rural-Appalachian baseline.Source: Census ACS 2023 B01003, B19013, B15003 (Jackson County, AL)
County home prices rose 26.6% on a 3-year baseline, the largest jump in this batch and the second-largest in any AI county outside Racine. The median home value remains $145,800, so the dollar move per house is roughly $40,000.Source: data/cache/realestate_yoy.csv (FIPS 01071) + Census ACS 2023 B25077

92.0% of Jackson County residents lived in the same house a year earlier and only 1.6% moved in from out of state, the most rooted population in this batch. That immobile cohort is the one that will absorb any TVA rate pass-through from data-center load with the least ability to leave.Source: Census ACS 2023 B07001_001E, B07001_017E, B07001_065E (Jackson County, AL)
Manufacturing still accounts for 25.2% of jobs in Jackson County, more than triple the national 8% baseline. The Widows Creek site converts from coal generation to data-center load inside a labor market still anchored by old-economy production.Source: Census ACS 2023 C24050_001E, C24050_004E (Jackson County, AL)
Median gross rent is $762 per month, the cheapest in this 16-county batch and roughly half the Atlanta-metro rate. The 75.0% owner-occupied share means most households are insulated from rent shock but exposed to property-tax reassessment.Source: Census ACS 2023 B25064_001E, B25003_001E, B25003_002E (Jackson County, AL)
16.8% of Jackson County residents live below the poverty line and 86.9% have a broadband subscription at home. The 13-point gap between poverty and broadband non-access is the digital floor the Google campus markets to but does not serve.Source: Census ACS 2023 B17001_001E, B17001_002E, B28002_001E, B28002_004E (Jackson County, AL)