The Soured Soul of Scranton: A Local Love Letter

Scranton has always been my reality. The city my family called home for generations. The same streets, the same valley, the same American question underneath it all – what are we becoming? 

This piece was published in The Times-Tribune, the Citizens' Voice, the Standard-Speaker, and the Republican Herald as Letter: Are data centers the new anthracite? on April 27th, 2026.

The Casey highway's makeover illustrates the pattern perfectly. Immediate gratification, foregone consequences. Look at the hillsides today. We’ve traded generations of forest for the barren footprints of data centers – clearing the land before we’ve even cleared the air on what these “projects” actually provide. We've seen this before – wealth extracted from our earth, leaving us with the tab and the landscape of what once was. Today, as data centers begin claiming hundreds of acres of Pennsylvania land, the question isn't whether investment is welcome — it is. The question is what kind, and at what cost. 

Our city still feels like a museum of its own obsolescence. The architectural marvels still stand. The stories of a thriving industrial past still circulate. But the path forward is becoming murky, and I'm not convinced trading industrial land for data storage is the answer Scranton deserves. 

We hear "jobs." But how permanent? When these positions are overtaken by automation, what remains? Scranton was once a beacon of industrial sovereignty — coal, manufacturing, the backbone of a nation. Our nation. Now we appear ready to become a hard drive housing the country's ChatGPT queries.

As a Stayer — someone who chose to remain when leaving was easier — I ask this simply: is this the future we're consenting to?

I'm not convinced trading industrial land for data storage is the answer Scranton deserves.

Joshua K. Burke — The Soured Soul of Scranton: A Local Love Letter