The sprawling, windowless warehouses that hold rows of high-speed servers powering almost everything the world does on phones and computers are increasingly becoming fixtures of the American landscape, popping up in towns, cities and suburbs across the United States.

Demand for data centers ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and local governments are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies. But as data centers begin to move into more densely populated areas, abutting homes and schools, parks and recreation centers, some residents are pushing back against the world’s most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities.

Tyler Ray, a vocal critic of data centers and leader in the fight against the Virginia project, said the incentives offered are not enough to counteract the consequences of building a facility so close to homes.

“All that we are asking for is, as the county is trying to bring in this data center income, that they are doing it in a way that doesn’t run residents away from their homes,” he said.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
    4·
    22 days ago

    Lol, good luck! (and I mean that). Hopefully their county is more receptive to the well-being of its residents than my state is.

    There’s an Air Force Base not too far from my house. The volume from it was always tolerable, and I knew that when I bought the place. A little under a year later, the state is all giddy about it being selected as a live refueling site.

    Live refueling is where aircraft don’t have to shut down their engines to refuel. Since then, it’s been a constant, all-hours drone of obnoxiously loud aircraft (Ospreys are the fucking worst). The governor basically said “we realize this might impact people in the surrounding areas, but fuck you, deal with it”.