Michigan Landowners: What You Need To Know Ahead of the AI Data Center Invasion

If you want to skip my life story and get straight into the details, Be My Guest.

I want to thank Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer for reminding me that March is National Reading Month.

(Before viewing the following - or any - video on my site, please familiarize yourself with my straightforward privacy policy. Video shares involving people do not signal personal endorsement. It only signals the relevance of a given perspective to the content which is to follow. When I share political videos, I will try to be varied with my sources, although we are going to have to accept that the videos linked in this article have a left-leaning bias. Baby steps all around.)

I also want to thank the sitting president of the United States for not allowing Elon Musk to DOGE National Reading Month.

Thank you, the reader, for being patient with my politics. There is a lot going on in the world and in our country. I promise that there is a point to its inclusion here. It is in my DNA.

Looking Backward

I want to start this off by acknowledging some shortcomings from My Last Article.

Beyond intensity, I also struggle with tone modulation, especially when hyperfocused. I sometimes come off as paranoid or passive aggressive. I do not mean to do that. My non-ai writing process involves a lot of emotional exploration, which I balance out with what I call "frictional thought" - which I will define in depth later, but for now can be understood straightforwardly as "a slower and more intentional mode of thinking than is permitted in today's fast-paced world."

In that article, I reference wanting to make up for past wrongs that I or my family have done. When I reference that, I want to be clear that I do not take the actions I take with the expectation of forgiveness. Rather, with the intention of repair - regardless of outcome.

Living Up To A Legend

I am not only remorseful about past wrongs. I am doing my best to carve out my own lane within a family legacy going forward. My great uncle, Bill Yambrick was something of a legend. A hard worker, not a born athletic freak - a real Rudy type, he worked his way into the record books at Flint Northern.

From there, he went on to earn even more records at Western Michigan University. With the 247th pick in the 1943 NFL Draft, Bill Yambrick was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

However, his flashy pro football career was cut short by his service to the US Navy during World War II.

Upon his return from World War II, my great uncle Bill - for whom I was given my middle name: William - dedicated himself to service and leadership within the Flint, Michigan community. Spending 30 years on the Board of Education, including 14 years (with five years from 1972-1977 as the assistant director) with the Mott Foundation, he fought hard in the push for racial equality in sports.

That push resulted in a local gymnasium's dedication in his honor, at a now-long-closed Flint school whose name I forget. If any of my older readers from the Flint, Michigan area happen to know which school that was, a comment on the social media site you found this article on would make you a hero.

I do not speak for my late, great uncle, Bill Yambrick - his spirit would find a way to kick my ass for putting words in his mouth, if the rest of my uncles are any indication of his influence - but I have spent 30+ years of my own life trying to carry forth my own interpretation of the essence of the man I was, in part, named for. What I have learned during my short life, however divergent my path has been from his, is that good men do not fear their peers or view the other as lesser. They respect and uplift them into equality. Great men with strong competitive drives then succeed by outworking those now-elevated peers at every turn, thus proving their ethic and drive to be superior. There is no honor in defeating someone you view as lesser. That is abuse, and abuse is embodied weakness.

Setting Things Straight

In my last post, I also called for resistance to eminent domain. I want to clarify that my position is always one of non-violent, legal resistance, with the intention of bettering outcomes for the hard working 'little guy.' Sorry if I got the wrong noun.

I am not into anything anti-American.

I am also not willing to lend my family's name to any causes which do not meet our high standards and expectations, out of respect for my elders who came before me, and who paved the way for so many of our comparably cushy lives.

Stopping Short of Stardom

I am proud of my great uncle Bill, and of his legacy. I am proud to share a surname with a man like him.

But I am not Bill Yambrick.

I am Patrick Yambrick.

It is not 1943. It is 2026.

Hitler is not in office.

The sitting president of the United States is.

My story so far is much funnier. I do not want it to remain that way. I am a former high achiever turned burnout, lazy drunk if you ask most who know me today. Acknowledging this isn't about self-deprecation. It is about indicating that I know a name isn't worth much if you don't live up to the values it represents. The same is true of a title. These things come with high standards and high expectations.

I have heard it said that "smart people learn from their mistakes; wise people learn from the mistakes of others." In keeping with that, I like to offer up my own mistakes as wisdom for others. I make a lot of them.

Beginning of Eminent Domain

Speaking of mistakes - I was political going one way before. Let me balance things a bit. Whatever my opinions on the sitting president of the United States, I try to be fair, funny, and forgiving where possible. I abstained from voting during the last election. I didn't do so because I thought that Kamala Harris was evil, or that the other guy was a Nazi. I abstained from voting because I saw a trend: otherwise competent Americans letting themselves get blind-sided by something that many saw coming, then crying foul and expecting forgiveness for the cruelties they enacted while they felt empowered. Remember the 'deplorables' thing?

I worried that Kamala Harris would - not out of villainy, or racial, or gender-based incompetence, but instead out of an honorable desire to prove competence and to set the tone for underserved women and girls in a changing world - get us to 'the government is using eminent domain to forcibly build AI Data Centers' slightly faster than the sitting president of the United States has gotten us there.

Anyway, I abstained, as unfortunate a decision as it was, because I worried that either candidate would inevitably get us to "the government is using eminent domain to forcibly remove American landowners from their homes to build AI Data Centers," just at different speeds and for different reasons. In fact, this is about the same time that I worried Kamala Harris might prematurely start rolling out eminent domain for AI Data Centers. Oops. I seem to have been duped.

What Is Eminent Domain?

You likely already know what eminent domain is. If you are reading this, it is because you are a competent person who knows their stuff - or a curious one who wants to learn. Let's get a refresher together, just in case.

Cornell Law defines Eminent Domain as "the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use, referred to as a 'taking.'" They also point out that The Fifth Amendment establishes the requirement that the government, or utility company acting on government authority, must offer "just payment" at "fair market value" to landowners in any taking.

That Sounds Fair. Why Are You So Worried About Just Payment At Fair Market Value?

Because some of these guys are slick.

Just compensation at fair market value can be based off of the sale price of a property which was recently sold locally, and it does not take into account your family history.

If someone recently sold a nicer house than yours - for example, a recently renovated house - for less than your house is worth in your area, they set your property up for a lower-than-you-might-expect eminent domain compensation appraisal and appropriation.

Developers whose intention is industrial or commercial can use the presence of a wet or soggy area on a property as justification for a lower than is fair evaluation.

Especially if your town is already lining up its zoning to favor business developments. Even if it is not, your property is now being reframed, and valued unfairly as less of an asset than it is. If your property meets those criteria, you are primed to receive a subprime offer that you can't refuse.

According toThe MOST Policy Initiative out of Missouri, the announcement of an eminent domain proceeding further decreases the assessed value of the property.

So you could be offered $40,000 on a much more valuable asset.

What Can Michigan Landowners Do To Prepare And Protect Themselves?

Michigan landowners have a few options if they move proactively.

Since blight is targeted, spring cleaning is critical. Nobody has to clean the whole place themselves. Encourage your neighbors to help each other out. Dispose of or organize waste piles. Walk around picking up litter Like I Did Last Spring.

Be ready to push back. It is common in real estate development to come with a low-ball offer first. Eminent domain proceedings are designed with maximum government spending efficiency in mind, so they will go as low as they think they can get you to believe your property is valued at. You ultimately have to accept, but they will present you with a negotiation charade which makes you feel heard and respected. And then they will pressure and overwhelm you until you comply for as little money as they can give you to quietly leave.

Sound familiar?

Good thing I am not a coastal elite tech or real estate developer scouting small towns to flatten for AI Data Centers.

When Michigan landowners counter with their own terms of engagement, it forces a subtle rebalancing of the playing field in favor of those landowners - you might get a few more bucks to quietly leave if you turn down the first offer.

Unfortunately, without legal action, there is little landowners can do about eminent domain. However, with persistence, knowledgeability, and good documentation, landowners have a chance at balancing things and preventing abuse. Michigan landowners are not weak. As highlighted on the Institute for Justice website, various landowner coalitions across the country have been able to fight for fairer terms during eminent domain proceedings.

A brief, one-time Englewood resident, myself, I am especially fond of the results achieved by the city's small business owners in being so obstinate with the city with their threats to rezone and alter the charter themselves that the city gave up.

Or, as one of my old League of Legends acquaintances was fond of saying as our team rode an inevitable wave to victory: "Make 'em FF (forfeit)!"

If you think your small community is worth standing up for, or if you are tired of being treated as replaceable and easily displaceable, look into some of the references I linked to here. Nobody needs to become an eminent domain lawyer overnight, but anyone with skin in the game and the grit to stay (or at least get paid well if you're going to be forced out of your home) should be equipped to defend themselves - if put on the spot or pressured - with an understanding of the basics.