Data centers are important elements in the infrastructure of a Internet-based, networked world. So, it should not be a surprise to see them pop up in suburbs in the Chicago region:

Data center provider Element Critical is expanding into the Chicago market with the acquisition of two data centers in suburban Wood Dale, Illinois, the company announced today. The deal provides a third market for Element Critical, which currently has operations in Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia…

The two data centers the company has acquired in Chicago encompass 195,000 square feet of data center space. Wood Dale is in the suburban Chicago market, 17 miles west of downtown Chicago and two miles from O’Hare International airport. Element Critical did not identify the seller, but Sungard Availability Services is listed as operating two facilities in Wood Dale…

Last week CIM Group and fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty (1547) acquired a data center at 725 South Wells in Chicago’s business district. The 66,000-square-foot facility was purchased from Digital Capital Partners, a wholesale data center provider. The building has 5 megawatts of capacity.

On Monday, New Continuum said that it has acquired its flagship data center at 603 Discovery Drive in West Chicago, Illinois. The company has been leasing the site since 2013, and was supported with financing by Post Road Group, a leading real estate bridge lender

I would guess that (1) very few Internet users think about data centers and (2) very few nearby residents could identify a data center from another kind of facility. For example, here is a Google Street View image of the Discovery Drive facility mentioned above:

There are numerous good reasons to not widely broadcast what is taking place in such facilities – with similarities to urban buildings that house telecommunication centers – yet such buildings will increasingly become regular parts of urban and suburban landscapes.