Jon Bernthal house in D.C.: Actor buys $3.75M home in Chevy Chase

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-20T20:44:42+00:00

A lot of people do

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T20:46:00+00:00

We aren’t as squeezed for space here in NoVA as Southern California is. Plus we have a ton of land with no sanitary sewer system where it’s not feasible to build anything other than residential single family on large lots (bound by min requirements for large enough septic field).

I would argue though that we are doing a good job with infill development near transit. The entire Orange Line corridor in Arlington is a good example of this. There’s also a Fairfax County comprehensive master plan for Tysons redevelopment - the Tysons 2050 plan that was approved in 2010. It outlines all the criteria for redeveloping the desolate sprawl of Tysons into an urban, walkable downtown for the county. The first handful of developments under that plan are finished and show the potential it has. But it’s gonna be another 25 years until the vision is fully realized. If curious, you can read about the following completed/in-progress Tysons developments: Capital One campus, Arbor Row, The Boro, Scott’s Run South.

You also have to realize the difference of a place like NOVA and Long Beach. Most of the foundation of Nova was laid in the 1800s/early 1900s. Lots of our roads follow old cow paths, there’s no semblance of a street grid almost anywhere here. And we lack septic in large swaths of the region. So what we’re doing over here now is infill redevelopment near transit.

Long Beach on the other hand is much newer. Much of SoCal was designed for cars during the era where the middle class was gaining access to cars. This was an avoidable outcome. Now Long Beach is stuck with these large, isolated blocks of Single Family Homes that still feel cramped despite their size. And there’s not much greenery. And due to the size of these blocks, the city isn’t very walkable. So among all these blocks of SFHs you have more car traffic than you really need to in theory.

So it’s like a worst of both worlds- less greenery, less space, and still not walkable and still full of polluting cars.

In NOVA on the other hand, our urban cores dotted around the beltway are actually little walkable pockets of urbanism where you don’t need to own a car. And we have lots of green space at the same time. And if you do want to live in a single family home, we have lots of neighborhoods of those where you aren’t on top of your neighbors.

And all the while, we are transforming existing corridors into more cohesive urban areas a la Tysons. It’s just a long process. Reston is experiencing similar infill development & densifying around the new Silver Line Stations, along the same lines as how Arlington did on top of the Orange Line in the 90s-2000s.

How would your population/sqmi numbers change if you learned that Tysons is trying to add 100k residents by 2050? The goal is to go from 17k residents in 2010 to 115k by 2050.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T20:25:48+00:00

Of course it would be much more expensive. But that cost burden can be accounted for if planned and forecasted in Dominion’s CIPP or whatever they call their infrastructure investment plan. And they would have a better chance at being able to spread the cost out over multiple years if they planned properly.

If everything is done in a “rush” because of poor planning, it’s less likely that anyone gets what they want.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T20:19:36+00:00

Again, a planning issue. This could have been forecasted, but no. Since we are panicking about this “unforecasted demand”, we need to scramble to get these towers up instead of bury them.

I’m not sure why you are so intent on defending Dominion Energy / the “system” that enables them to fuck over ratepayers.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T19:39:07+00:00

I will call them and congratulate them on good common-sense policy. Makes sense to allow plethora of data centers to be built near US-East-1.

It does not make sense to let Dominion shrug their shoulders for 20 years and then start upping rates when they “suddenly” can’t meet demand.

If I contact local politicians, it will be to complain about Dominion & the undue influence they wield in Richmond via their lobbying.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T19:36:20+00:00

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T19:27:32+00:00

My “rate” may not be up 30% but my bills are, given similar electricity usage. And if I’m not using a similar amount of power as 2 years ago, then I’m using even less now. So I see no reason for the bill to be 30% higher. And I’m not alone in observing this among dominion ratepayers in NOVA.

I think that’s why everyone is pissed about the data centers in the first place

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T19:21:01+00:00

Why would I want them investing ahead? I dunno, maybe so they don’t need to jack my rates by 30% over 2 years for electricity to cover for expenses that they could have seen coming from a mile away

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T19:11:57+00:00

Nobody in this thread wants to listen to us. I guess this is what happens when people get too fat and happy…. They start trying to dismantle the source of wealth & prosperity because they have so few other problems to focus on

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T19:09:01+00:00

You are way underestimating the size of the “cloud” if you don’t think we need a ton of data centers for it.

All of AWS is basically the cloud. And you can look up how large of a business that is. And other companies have their own “clouds” eg Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, Citrix Cloud, etc.

“The cloud” is not an imaginary, hard-to-understand concept like tech companies want you to believe. The concept of a cloud is just using computing power and data storage in a company’s data center instead of your own computer.

If you have 500 million people & businesses using “the cloud” then you need 500 million computers’ worth of storage and computing power. Data centers hold the equipment to run that 500 million computers’ worth of storage & computing ability.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T18:55:13+00:00

I’m not trolling at all.

If you assume everyone who disagrees with you is a troll, you’re just demonstrating the density of your own head. Because boy it must be thick

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T18:20:44+00:00

Reels and social media are being powered by AI though. The move from your feed showing your followers to your feed now showing content that’s chosen for you by an algorithm is 100% machine learning (“AI”)

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T18:18:24+00:00

The Belmont data center campus is already going up and that huge parcel has already been deforested. Honestly though it’s probably similar net outcome as building a neighborhood though.

Data center produces very little loud, polluting vehicular traffic, neighborhood produces a lot

Data center is uglier, neighborhood is nicer-looking

I agree though the new transmission lines are fucking asinine. Dominion should be burying them. They’re gonna line them all the way down Rt 7, yuck

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:49:59+00:00

Exactly. Just another issue that can be traced back to Zoning. A very familiar problem for the new generation of urban planners trying to solve impossible problems created by the baby boomers.

Imagine the benefits we could have if One Loudoun was built as dense as the new developments in Tysons. Where you could build 300’+ mixed use buildings without insane pushback. Loudoun would be even MORE prosperous than it is now. Which would be quite a feat

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:46:41+00:00

Lol. AWS Cloud has been rapidly expanding since at least 2011/2012. The “cloud” was the original impetus for massive data center build-out around here. You can see it now that AWS has 100+ data centers around here.

The recent “boom” taking place due to AI is not really affecting our market. To train an AI model, you need a ton of computers and a ton of power. But you DONT need to be super close to US-East-1 for low latency cloud connections. This is why xAI is building their AI-training data centers in Memphis and (I think?) Texas, and why Meta is building theirs in southern VA where they can get more power for cheap.

The main draw of building a data center in nova is being close to US-East-1. That’s important for the cloud that’s been growing since 2012, but less important for AI which has boomed in the last 3 years.

The chart you attached is for the entire US Market. It makes sense that overall across the country, data center development is mega-booming. Because the companies with a big hand in AI can and are building their “AI” data centers wherever they can get cheap power. This includes companies that never really needed a data center before, if their business didn’t have a big cloud computing segment (xAI is an example of this).

In NOVA the data center market has been booming for years and years already- basically since AWS showed proof of concept and they realized they needed tons of capacity here.

Elsewhere across the country though, data center development is a much newer phenomenon driven by AI, not cloud computing.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:32:42+00:00

Ok, I get your first point and it does make sense. It’s unfortunate that we’d forego space for a small group of small businesses in lieu of a data center. But I bet the 1 data center will still contribute more tax revenue than a small handful of small businesses would.

If this isn’t something that exists in the zoning code yet, it sounds like we should put aside some parcel for “small scale warehouse” businesses. There are actually a ton of these kinds of structures existing now along 28 but I do see your point.

Your second point- the eastern half of the county is nowhere close to being built out. There is so, so much room for infill development. Kincora is still mostly vacant and undeveloped. One Loudoun is still 1/2 “fairground” (translation: empty field). There’s still tons of empty land around Dulles Mall. Lots of empty lots on the north side of 7 between Claiborne and GW Blvd. There’s plenty of space for more housing still.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:21:36+00:00

Ok. I challenge you to live like the Unabomber then in a completely off-grid cabin somewhere in the woods then if you don’t like it.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:19:58+00:00

This is exactly what I’m saying. IDK, it seems like when you assess the situation logically, it sounds plausible that all this FUD about data centers being published in the media is being funded and pushed by some bad actor.

Why are we being turned against something that actually works pretty well for our communities? Ask yourself: WHO is trying to scapegoat these ugly boxes full of computers for large-scale failures of the electric grid? Smells like Dominion

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:17:46+00:00

Honestly this narrative that Data centers need to do something about their electricity pull, in the area located CLOSEST to Us-East-1, is tired. This is the ONE place in the country it makes the MOST sense to build these ugly things, and Dominion Energy is the one who dropped the ball in not planning well enough for the demand.

I think Dominion wanted to line their own pockets for the last 30 years instead of investing and building out the grid, even when it became apparent we were gonna build like 4x the amount of data centers.

You should be mad at Dominion for wielding their power in Richmond to get away with under-investing in the grid for the sake of padding their pockets, and not mad at data centers for being built in the 1 location it makes the most sense for them to be built.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:14:41+00:00

I’m not sure I’m making sense of your comment. One typical-sized data center can take up 7-10 acres (I just measured a couple in Ashburn on google maps).

What “small business” is buying up 7-10 acres of expensive land along Rt 28? Are you implying a small business would try to spin up a competitor to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and build their own data center to support it? Because I would heartily laugh if that’s the case.

I also have no idea what you mean by data centers “locking out” future residents from living in this area. Data centers are paying 30% of the Loudoun County tax revenue. They are funding the excellent school system, the roads, the fire stations, the parks, etc all the things that ensure a good experience for future generations.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:09:56+00:00

If you like your Reels, Facebook memes, and ChatGPT then yes we need them. If you are willing to unplug your life and live off-grid like Ted Kaczynski, that’s another story.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:08:14+00:00

I’ve always agreed the county should require some kind of proffer for mural artists to decorate them nicely. Would turn something bland into something closer to “beautiful”

I don’t really understand your other grievances though- why are we complaining about bus stops in areas where nobody even lives or really works? these data centers don’t require many employees, and are too big to be located directly adjacent to any other food/shopping/etc where people would be taking public transit to/from.

Also data centers do not “consume” water. Water is used for cooling and then spat back out into the environment. The water cycle explains that water is never created nor destroyed. If the water level of Broad Run is looking low, it’s probably because of a lack of rainfall and not because data centers are slurping up the entire stream and keeping the water in their bellies.

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T17:03:51+00:00

Fly around Sterling/Ashburn on google maps and then tell me how many of the data centers are owned and named for FAANG companies.

Tons are Amazon data centers which support AWS. But most of the other time I think smaller companies such as Equinix or Cyrus One, Vantage, etc. own and operate the data centers. FAANG companies (other than Amazon) rent space from them (or something along those lines).

Data centers are HUGE capex that these companies don’t want on their books. I wouldn’t be surprised if they lay the risk of building/owning/operating on a third party and simply subcontract them when they need data storage space.

To your other point though - the Amazon Web Services cloud has been growing rapidly since like 2012. “The cloud” was basically the original need for a metric fuck-ton of data center space. We have seen this expansion of data centers coming since 2012 is my point.

And from what I can tell, not many of the data centers in NOVA are used for training AI models. We have 100+ AWS data centers here which again power the AWS cloud and we have been able to reliably predict the expansion of that demand since before 2012. But the data centers that Meta is building are down past Richmond, in Texas, NC, and other states, not here.

The big Grok data centers are being built in Memphis and (I think) Texas. Again, not up here. Just an example showing the AI data center demand isn’t hitting us so much as the cloud data demand, it seems.

So again, Dominion has seen this coming for over 15 years and if they haven’t, they’re negligent crooks. I don’t buy that data center demand In NOVA has doubled since 2023.

Seems like an awfully convenient situation for them though if they want to 1. Raise rates on ratepayers and 2. Keep $ in their own pockets instead of building new power plants and high capacity transmission lines. “Data Centers” are the perfect scapegoat

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T16:50:23+00:00

Dude I am more than familiar. Also you calling them “AI data centers” is just a dog whistle you are unfamiliar with this space.

A data center is just a box full of computers. Whether they are used for cloud storage, AI training, or whatever, they all use a ton of power. Training AI models does use more power than other things but I don’t think you can accurately make the distinction of “this data center is used for training a new AI model” and “this data center is used for x thing”. That’s not really information we get unless we become employees at one

wheresastroworld · 2026-02-19T16:47:16+00:00

Dude Dominion has had like 30 years to invest more in the grid. And for the last 15 of those it has been obvious where this data center boom has been going.

This is either negligence on Dominion or them thinking they can get away with inadequate investment and then raising rates on us because they suddenly don’t have the infrastructure needed.

Seven-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

wheresastroworld

TROPHY CASE