7 in 10 Americans oppose data centers being built in their communities

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/05/13/7-10-americans-oppose-data-centers-being-built-their-communities/

by 1vuio0pswjnm7 • 2 months ago

70 103 2 months ago

It’d basically the same as fracking. No one should have to be subject to noise pollution or water pollution from these things. And they’re an eyesore. Plus it’s not like the incumbent residents share in the wealth of these tech companies.

gruez5• 2 months ago

That goes for like, most infrastructure? Who would want a dump or nuclear power plant in their backyard?

jkmcf• 2 months ago

Technically people do benefit from having a dump or power plant.

Very few people are affected by having a dump nearby or a nuclear power plant, whereas it seems like the power generators for these AI data centers really belong in an industrial park.

These data centers also don't employ many people, though I've read they are wonderful for city taxes, assuming they haven't gotten too many enticing tax breaks.

zbrozek• 2 months ago

Folks don't want anything built near them ever. Even if it's as benign as housing.

ungreased06753• 2 months ago

I’ll take the nuclear power plant, as long as I’m far enough away to not hear anything from it.

tzs2• 2 months ago

Pretty much nobody, but dumps and nuclear power plants are in the same category as things like airports and sewage treatment plants that provide services that are largely used in the area the service provider is in. You may not like a dump nearby, but hey, your area needs those services and the providers have to be in the area, and at least a dump is better than a sewage treatment plant.

AI data centers are not in that category. Nothing AI is going to do (good or bad) for 99.9% of people requires that the data center that AI is running in is in the same area, or even the same state. It just needs to be somewhere where the internet latency between them and the data center is not too high for whatever they are using the AI for.

bpodgursky2• 2 months ago

The data centers will thus provide 45 percent of the nearly $2.9 billion in county tax revenue. For perspective, that means that the money they generate exceeds what Loudoun spends on every county function outside the school system. In effect, local police, courts, jails, fire and rescue, libraries, parks, animal control, and social services are funded without burdening residents.

-- Loudoun County, Virginia

rmason3• 2 months ago

Heard an interview with the former head of Loudoun County who is now an evangelist for the data center industry. They got the county completely out of debt. They tripled the amount they spent on parks and art. But the kicker was the fact they have a $1 billion dollars in their rainy day fund! The data centers are all located in four townships out of sixteen in the county.

shoopadoop• 2 months ago

And so what, if the datacenters render the place uninhabitable? Even if its budget is in the black the county sounds awful to live in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAliBRyq_1c

Look how close all these shrieking buildings are to residential areas.

jmyeet3• 2 months ago

There are lots of reasons you can oppose fracking BUT oil wells are generally built on pretty low value land eg West Texas and the Dakotas. Also, fracking creates a lot of jobs. Plus the landowner (often farmers or ranchers) will typically get royalties on the amount of oil pumped.

There have been a lot of sins committed by the oil industry, like in Texas there are lot of leaking, "orphan" wells where nobody ended up being responsible for capping the well and doing the clean up. This goes back to the 1950s and earlier. I think things are somewhat better now.

There's literally zero upside to a community to building a data center. Electricity costs go up, there's noise pollution, there are no jobs, water rates go up and there is water pollution.

Honestly, fracking is a better deal than a data center.

Game_Ender2• 2 months ago

A functioning property tax brings in a lot of revenue for the local government. Areas of the US with lots of data centers, like Loudon County, can have 35% of their budgets covered by data centers, and the worst of it is so ugly big box buildings you drive by sometimes.

Put in place sensible rules around noise, locating in pre-planned areas, and covering the cost for electrical upgrades then let the market decide how many to build. Most people appear to be getting their information from TikTok and have developed a very ignorant NIMBY attitude.

To be blunt progress does get made by listening solely to those who get short end of the stick. Japan and China have good rail in large part because the central government can simply make the globally better choice over the objections of those nearby who lose out due to noise and other factors. We don’t need to do that, we simply need to not let ignorance win and instead regulate the externalities properly, and capture value for the public through property taxes.

ramblenode2• 2 months ago

Honestly, fracking is a better deal than a data center.

I know this is a bit of a tangent, but fracking is an absolute plague, and I would encourage you to do more research about it's downsides if you think it is mostly benign. Aside from the better known ground water poisoning from leaks and dumping, fracking creates actual earthquakes that can be felt tens of miles away. My family has property that has been damaged by these earthquakes---in a region with no active faults where there wasn't an earthquake in living memory before the fracking started. Now there are at least several per year strong enough to rattle a tea cup off the table. A few people get paid, but it's a horrible deal for almost everybody else in the county.

rmason3• 2 months ago

We need to win in AI and to do that we must have data centers. The solution I believe is for the people building them to get creative.

1. Build them in the industrial part of town. I'm from Michigan, there are neighborhoods in our cities filled with manufacturing firms stamping steel and making all kinds of noise with few houses. Yes the real estate can be more expensive and sometimes needs pollution removed but there are usually willing economic development departments willing to help.

2. Make the data centers bring their own power.

3. Find ways to creatively help the community. Saw pictures of a data center recently where they created two huge public swimming pools that are open all winter long, There is a power plant on Lake Michigan where they heat all the sidewalks. Imagine waking up in the morning and not having to shovel or spread ice before going to work.

4. Find ways to repurpose unwanted buildings. Detroit wants to tear down two of the five towers of the Renaissance Center which is on the Detroit River. One of the towers would have the first two floors occupied by the University of Michigan which would offer training classes on technology to the community. The rest would be a data center for the university. Power would be two gas turbines on the roof. The other tower would be a partnership with Detroit Public Schools that would offer a dormitory for all the school age kids living on the street. Educate these children from 6-18. Most American cities have at least one empty skyscraper that could be repurposed as a vertical data center.

5. Repurpose old shopping centers as data centers. South of the Mason Dixon line where solar has a higher ROI you could cover the entire parking lot with solar cells. You could offer free or nearly free shaded parking, maybe even let campers have extended stays.

bigstrat2003• 2 months ago

We need to win in AI

No, we do not. There's no prize to be won, nothing of value to be gained.

breakingstuff• 2 months ago

It blows my mind that you don't hear more about repurposing old malls and other abandoned large properties as data centers. Also, the fact that hyperscalers don't think more about how their buildings could add more benefit to the community they are in shows just how tone death they are. If they don't change their approach soon, no way capacity is going to catch up to demand.

rapsey2• 2 months ago

Bring your own power means natural gas turbines or diesel generators. Both of which produce incredible noise pollution.

add-sub-mul-div• 2 months ago

"Winning" in AI could mean standing by while other countries race to atrophy the minds of their citizens.

tzs2• 2 months ago

We need to win in AI and to do that we must have data centers

What exactly do you mean by "win in AI"?

platevoltage• 2 months ago

Living in a place where land is super expensive has its benefits I guess.

rho138• 2 months ago

Those damn NIMBY’s blocking progress again! /s

nozzlegear• 2 months ago

This but unironically. We must nuke the suburbs.

IFC_LLC• 2 months ago

It's fun to watch how a thing that can potentially create an immense surge of economic development is being vilified. Yes, true, you can't just take and build a data center without having the power and water and all the rest of the things. So fine, make investors to come and build new power plants and get more water lines. This is going to handle a lot of current problems in the infrastructure.

We could have used the momentum to build new work opportunities and resources.

Instead we managed to mis-represent the thing so much that people won't even consider having a data center in their vicinity.

It COULD have been a good thing. It became a bad thing.

good86753092• 2 months ago

So fine, make investors to come and build new power plants and get more water lines.

If you believe they are going to build their own power plants and water lines, I've got a bridge to sell you

ndiddy• 2 months ago

Since they're such a positive, I'm sure you would be fine having one built near you: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dvOuZmmJm7A

freetime27• 2 months ago

It certainly sounds terrible. I just don't know how credible this YouTube short is. They could be turning the gain way up, using a completely different sound recording, etc.

A sibling post links to a news story [1] which I think is more credible and they measured the noise at 90db right outside the data center - which is certainly high. But they are filming next to a highway and a shopping center, which were presumably quite noisy to begin with. And both of the residents they interviewed hadn't even noticed the noise before the interviewer pointed it out.

They also show some footage from a different data center in the area, and it is much quieter. So sounds like it can vary from datacenter to datacenter, with this one being unnusually loud.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkvabeNMaxU

Game_Ender2• 2 months ago

That data center is running on local power generation because they failed to get power run to the data center properly and essentially exploited a loop whole in planning permission that allowed them to install local power generation: https://www.loudounnow.com/news/sterling-residents-raise-ala...

It’s the only 1 out of 200 in that area, so it’s not representative of what data centers sound like. It does show how you can’t trust the operators to do what best for the local community. It does show how a functioning government works because Loudon county increased oversight and changes the rules to stop another project like that. Setup policies to manage externalities, and don’t make ignorant bans.

protocolture8• 2 months ago

I work at multiple and I cant hear them outside of the data halls.

"Theres one noisy data centre" ok deal with it locally and stop using it for your silly crusade.

ungreased06753• 2 months ago

There are new data centers near me. My employment prospects haven’t changed. My utilities, particularly electricity have gotten more expensive though. Property taxes have gone up a little bit.

I’m not against data centers, I don’t mind one way or another. But they’ve definitely not improved the neighborhood and have almost no positive benefits for the community that I’m aware of.

vasco3• 2 months ago

You're all on the internet in your community and using software services so that's like saying you have no benefit from having a power station when you all use electricity. They have to be somewhere

protocolture8• 2 months ago

I really feel like DC operators should have a strike, shutdown 50% of their data halls for an hour, and they will suddenly be the most beloved industry on the planet.

Half the stuff going on in most data centres the terminally online crowd would consider to be human rights these days. But you cant calculate that element from Twitter.

"Whats the value of a router terminating multiple VXC's to me, jim everyman" well jimmy, what if you are about to place a call across that VXC.

moron4hire5• 2 months ago

The modern "data center project" looks more and more like building a stadium for a professional sports team.

Oh sure, you can make the argument about how it's going to drive sales tax revenue and create jobs and all that.

But then the reality sets in. The massive property and corporate income tax breaks and subsidies and land use variances that were all negotiated as part of the deal come to roost. The jobs aren't upwardly mobile jobs. The income tax revenue isn't enough to offset all the other breaks.

And you end up with a yolk saddled on the backs of the working class. Of which the bachelor degreed workforce necessary to make something like a data center happen gets treated more and more like a trade than a profession.

Back in the 90s when NAFTA was on everyone's tongues, something like a data center would have been a huge boon to the local economy. And let us be clear, "local economy" means families. But today, things like this study, show that people have no confidence the Invisible Hand is working for them anymore.

gruez5• 2 months ago

But then the reality sets in. The massive property and corporate income tax breaks and subsidies and land use variances that were all negotiated as part of the deal come to roost. The jobs aren't upwardly mobile jobs. The income tax revenue isn't enough to offset all the other breaks.

Then it sounds like the issue is subsidized datacenters, and the solution is simple: don't subsidize them.

watwut2• 2 months ago

t's fun to watch how a thing that can potentially create an immense surge of economic development is being vilified.

Maybe the titans promoting AI should NOT promote it on the "we will make you all unemployable" and "we will flood zone woth slop, what you like will die and you womt have a choice".

Without the years of sociopathic tech CEOs, maybe people would be more open to the idea of "it wont end up as pure power grab, with ai used to extract more money from me while making me earn less".

good86753092• 2 months ago

Finally something that unites the right and the left

adabyron• 2 months ago

If you can get people to sit down and think through topics, many of the right and left people are often very aligned.

Unfortunately to many people just take headlines and memes from terrible sources as to how they should think without putting any thought into it. Both sides are also vilified against each other.

I would expect this to become one of those things in the near future.

lotsofpulp• 2 months ago

Both sides are also vilified against each other.

The side that fraudulently claimed the other side stole an election, tried to overturn it, and then pardoned people found guilty of treason made themselves the villains. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

watwut2• 2 months ago

One side villified the other while the other was constantly playing the "mature reasonable looser who fixes problems and still takes the blame".

This is very assymetric issue. Making it both sides are the same is just maming the problem worst.

cm2012• 2 months ago

Hysterical that what unites them is essentially silly and poorly-evidenced fear mongering. Democracy at its best.

freetime27• 2 months ago

Non-paywalled version:

https://archive.is/8yQin

phendrenad22• 2 months ago

Like the panic over fracking, or nuclear, or electricity itself (cue the infamous newspaper comic portraying electrical lines as a giant spider shocking people below), it'll take time for the novelty of the anti-hype to wear off, and people will realize that datacenters aren't actually noisy, and they don't annihilate water in a matter-antimatter reaction nullifying its existence, and they don't run jet fuel turbines 24/7. But in that time, China is going to build 100x as many datacenters and Americans will then lament being left behind in the AI race (the way they lament not having high-speed rail like China does).

bradishungry• 2 months ago

Benn Jordan has a video about the issues data centers can pose to their local communities. The xAI data centers are actively polluting their communities right now and there are several credible articles about it. Ruining normal people’s lives and the environment for “progress” against another country is extremely short sighted.

simonw• 2 months ago

As far as I can tell the xAI data centers are the absolute worst data centers for local impact and pollution.

bronco210163• 2 months ago

Seems to be working well for China. They do all the “undesirables” that we can’t possibly have in our country. Primarily to push products we can’t live without.

They are getting wealthy off absorbing those externalities that come from production of consumer goods while we watch “Oww! My balls!” and drink Brawndo!

So are they (China) shortsighted? Or are they slowly winning in global influence?

jauer• 2 months ago

and the xAI data centers are uniquely dirty and polluting because they don't have sufficient grid connectivity and are running on generator 24x7.

This isn't a problem for the vast majority of datacenters, and won't become a larger problem unless the anti-civilization mindset blocks infrastructure investment that's eventually needed even if the datacenter isn't built.

linkregister• 2 months ago

There are credible reports of new build ('25 and '26) datacenters emitting loud turbine noise and drawing enough water to drastically reduce water pressure in a handful of communities. Nobody's talking about established DCs in Ashburn or San Jose.

Bad actors are ruining public perception. Either an industry group needs to form or self-regulate, or governments will do it for them.

Pesky Americans, with their rights and voting power!

ramblenode2• 2 months ago

Like the panic over fracking

Fracking is absolutely not harmless. I posted elsewhere in this thread about how I have had family property damaged by fracking-induced earthquakes. This is in a region with no active faults, with no record of earthquakes before the fracking started, and the wells are tens of miles away, not next door. I certainly hope data centers are better than fracking wells because those things are a plague.

phendrenad22• 2 months ago

I'm sorry about your property. Can I assume this event led you to study the issue and conclude based on evidence beyond there being no record of earthquakes in the region (every region has a record of earthquakes, so I'm leaning towards no)

Lucent• 2 months ago

This is why land use and nuisance laws exist in municipalities. People clamor for deregulation when it prevents them from shooting off fireworks or guns or burning trash and move to unincorporated areas.

Then, a datacenter comes along, effectively a bigger, louder, richer neighbor playing by the same lack of rules and outdoes them at their own game. It's only oppression when a bigger dog shows up?

winrid• 2 months ago

There is a difference between freedom and oppression yes. Are you saying we can't figure out where to put buildings if we let people celebrate the 4th of July?

gruez5• 2 months ago

It's only oppression when a bigger dog shows up?

That's unironically how it's sometimes defined. "racism = prejudice + power", as the saying goes.

alephnerd2• 2 months ago

Back in the Biden era, we saw a similar movement against REE mining and processing in the far right and left wing social media ecosystem perpetuated by the PRC [0]. Heck, a number of nation state associated accounts were reported and taken down from HN a couple years ago.

It wouldn't be surprising if a large portion of the anti-DC movement is being perpetuated by the same orgs.

Personally, I view the Kochs and Singham as two sides of the same coin and a major reason why Citizens United should not have been ruled in the manner it was.

It is what it is. Data centers are the one bright spot that has been subsidizing green and renewable energy investment now that the Trump admin is running the show, as only mass scale solar and wind can support much of the buildout cheaply and efficiently.

We can always leave for the CEE and India where their governments are basically subsidizing the entire capex for buildout. And then American and Western European HNers complain that "dey took 'er jerbs".

[0] https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra...

freetime27• 2 months ago

These problems feel like they should be solveable. Communities should set strict noise limits and fine the heck out of data centers for exceeding them. Data centers should be required to provide their own power, like this datacenter [1] in Ireland (and ideally a large portion of it should be renewable). They should also be required to minimize water usage, like this Microsoft design that uses closed-loop cooling [2].

It will increase costs, but so be it. If you're going to build these things, then do it right.

A bigger problem, however, is that this requires functional government working in the interests of its residents.

[1] https://www.computeforecast.com/news/pure-dc-avk-europe-data...

[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2024/12...

ryukoposting2• 2 months ago

should is carrying the weight of the universe here.

freetime27• 2 months ago

What's the alternative - give up all hope of civilization being able to accomplish anything good? I get it - there's lobbyists and "enshitification" and a million other things wrong with the world to contend with. But there's an awful lot of good things that humans have built, too. Despite certain aspects of life getting shittier, I still don't want to go back in time and live in any other point in history. And I can't even if I did.

I guess one alternative would be to just stop building data centers altogether. But to me that feels like giving up on progress. I'd rather try to figure out ways to make data centers suck less.

analog31• 2 months ago

My dad was on his city's environmental control board. He learned that noise is actually quite hard to regulate. And every locality has to figure out their own unique noise ordinance. It should be solveable, but it might be realistically hard to solve.

lofaszvanitt• 2 months ago

What is hard to regulate? You point a directional mike towards the data center and towards the plains where sheeps roam. Compare, send the cheques and nuke them.

protocolture8• 2 months ago

Data centers should be required to provide their own power, like this datacenter [1] in Ireland

Data Centers should buy power at whatever the going rate of electricity is.

It is advantageous for some data centers to build their own power, but its not the norm nor should any industry be required to.

Whats next Aluminium smelting? Oil production? Big box retail?

Just because an industry that uses power has become the enemy of the week doesnt exclude them from market access. That should be obvious.

A bigger problem, however, is that this requires functional government working in the interests of its residents.

It requires governments reacting to random populist impulses that don't fundamentally aid the community to ban random industries from the grid. Why not pressure the government to react to power price increases with additional supply like anyone who spends 20 seconds considering this issue would come up with?

freetime27• 2 months ago

Whats next Aluminium smelting? Oil production? Big box retail?

Yes I would say any large construction project that carries a risk of negatively impacting its community should be required to mitigate those issues in order to gain approval. Otherwise you are just passing on those negative "externalities" to someone else.

ben_w2• 2 months ago

Whats next Aluminium smelting? Oil production? Big box retail?

Onion Futures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act

There's lots of things where it's not particularly difficult for very rich groups, sometimes even very rich individuals, to be able to afford so much of a thing that by buying it they damage opportunities for everyone else.

This is a known limitation of the free market, and why almost nowhere is actually a perfectly free market, only more or less free.

jmyeet3• 2 months ago

People are starting to see just who the government works for and this goes for local, city, county, state and federal governments. And it's not you, the voter. It's for the interests of the wealthy.

We're seeing just how easy it is to get something wildly unpopular approved. Approvals are given in the dead of night, with little notice, over objections and by weaponizing certain legislation or government authority.

A great example of this is the Kevin O'Leary Utah mega-data center than the county didn't want so Kevin O'Leary went to the military, specifically the Military Installation Development Authority ("MIDA") to basically get them to argue the project was for "national security" and to override the county [1].

And here's what's going to happen. Most of these officials won't get voted out. Those that do will get some random six-figure job loosely associated with whoever owns the data center.

Basically, we're getting a front row seat on just how undemocratic and corrupt government generally is.

It's worth adding that a decade ago Princeton did a study on the effect of public opinion on what bills Congress passed and basically it has zero effect [2]. Bills have about a 30% chance of getting passed and that doesn't change if 0% of people support it or 100% of people support it.

[1] https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/05/11/utah-data-center-proj...

[2] https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba

bananamogul• 2 months ago

"People are starting to see just who the government works for and this goes for local, city, county, state and federal governments. And it's not you, the voter. It's for the interests of the wealthy."

That's the way it's been since 1789. Each year, college students think they've uncovered something shocking.

protocolture8• 2 months ago

Yeah thats right. I fully commend you to give up all services that are hosted in data centers.

bronco210163• 2 months ago

I live in an area where one of these has caused state level political drama in Michigan. Many of my family members love to weigh in when we gather and I’m struggling to understand the animosity.

The arguments I frequently hear are:

1) It will jack up our electric rates. From the same people who will NIMBY solar and battery all day long.

2) It uses all of our water.

3) The dust and construction traffic is terrible and it looks terrible.

4) It’s massive and noisy.

I’m struggling because the only item I can seemingly validate is electricity cost.

There is water usage but it seems heavily tied to the electrical generation. Cooling is a one time consumption and annual top off. Which as I mentioned, these same people will tell you solar and battery are no good.

For the eyesore and size etc, it way out of town, when it’s done not many will work there, and noise, they’ve built a hill around it and it won’t use on site electrical generation.

I just don’t get the hate. The electrical stuff is a challenge but was going to be no matter what. AI just accelerated it. Maybe I need to go see some other sites to see how bad it is.

rapsey2• 2 months ago

One of the biggest arguments against is the incredible noise pollution. If it uses a natural gas turbine it is like being next to a jet engine.

bronco210163• 2 months ago

First, I operate turbine engines so I’m around them a lot. I also used to live near a Williams Intl plant where cruise missile turbines were tested. I hear you. Barely. You see my hearing is poor from the turbine engines.

They’re loud and I wouldn’t want one running continuously around me.

The point is though, I haven’t been able to find indication that they will be used for this DC. Much of the drama surrounding this DC is because the utility pushed approval through then went had a $500 mil capital improvement rate hike.

I acknowledge the affect on electrical rates is a problem. But this DC has become a flashpoint in Michigan and I’m just not sure I follow why it’s so awful overall.

delichon• 2 months ago

The noise part isn't tough to validate. I would consider this intolerable.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/no-one-live-video-shows-...

rmason3• 2 months ago

Actually there is an alternative to noise and that is the closed loop liquid cooling. I have visited one of those and there is virtually no noise outside the facility. Inside it was loud like any other data center that I have visited. People walk by it every day and I'd bet they aren't even aware its a data center.

selectedambient2• 2 months ago

this is why offline embedded and local models is the best path forward continuing with AI.

byzantinegene• 2 months ago

I would be curious to see if the current AI valuations continue to balloon if everyone eventually shifts to local models. Hardware demand would still be high, but circular financing might no longer continue,

sometimelurker2• 2 months ago

you still have to train all the stuff you want to run locally.

infamouscow• 2 months ago

For most people, they will use the models included in iOS and Android on their phone.

When all these datacenter projects halt (as is their trajectory), at some point someone is going to ask about what to do with the unused GPUs. Those will probably sell to bitcoin miners or other new AI companies that know how to use exotic sources of power, though at smaller scales.

sometimelurker2• 2 months ago

here's a fun idea: with normal-person ram really expensive, and fabs are pivoting to making more HBM, what if a town built its own datacenter and gave access to it for the townspeople?

fuckinpuppers• 2 months ago

Feels like nimby-ism but even for the poor. Everyone gets a piece!

It surprises me that these datacenters hum even far away from the buildings. Not too shocked about water but that also seems like a solvable problem by using dirty water, somehow keeping some closed loop system, things that people much smarter than me have looked into.

I thought there was a lot of work done back in the “open datacenter” era when FB and Google both seemed to open source their plans and tech and stuff.

It’s crazy that now more than ever there is demand for DCs but either they’re cutting corners on efficiency and being responsible stewards, or these are at some scale that still hasn’t solved some of those basic concerns.

7 in 10 Americans oppose data centers being built in their communities

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