Communities are rising up against data centers — and winning

Local fights against new data centers are gaining bipartisan support across the US.

The group’s latest report found that developers either canceled or delayed 20 projects after facing pushback from locals, representing $98 billion in proposed investments in the second quarter of this year. In fact, from late March through June, $24.2 billion in projects were blocked and $73.7 billion delayed. That’s an increase compared to 16 blocked or postponed projects from 2023 through the first quarter of this year, the group notes.

The number of proposed data center projects has grown, which is a big reason why opposition is also picking up steam. Inventory in the four biggest data center markets in North America — Northern Virginia, Chicago, Atlanta, and Phoenix — grew by 43 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of this year, according to commercial real estate company CBRE. But plans for massive new facilities have also sparked battles across the nation.

“No community should be forced to sacrifice clean air, clean water, or safe homes so that corporations and billionaires can build energy-hungry facilities,” the NAACP said in guiding principles that it shared with The Verge in September for other grassroots groups working to hold data center developers accountable for their impact on nearby neighborhoods.

The article mentions legislations in Indiana, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Dakota, Virginia, Maryland, Minnesota