All those scary numbers aren’t what they seem.
I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centers
It’s probably not your ideological thing, or mine. It’s about object-level claims about how data centers impact the communities where they’re built, many of which are wrong.
I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centers
It’s probably not your ideological thing, or mine. It’s about object-level claims about how data centers impact the communities where they’re built, many of which are wrong.
The American People Really Hate Data Centers
There are at least five different core questions around data centers and their politics.
People Hate Datacenters, Survey Finds
The data drops as Sen. Bernie Sanders calls for a moratorium on datacenter construction. 'We need to take a deep breath. We need to make sure that AI and robotics work for all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.'
‘The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer’: Opposition to Data Centers
Americans have soured on data centers, polls show, and the sentiment is profoundly bipartisan. How will that change our politics?
Thinking about other industries like we think about data centers shows how impoverished the debate is
Clumsy, arbitrary environmental ideas ignore the incredible complexity of the systems modern society depends on
Data Center Watch
Free weekly updates on the political risks facing American data center projects
You’re Thinking About AI and Water All Wrong
Fears about AI data centers’ water use have exploded. Experts say the reality is far more complicated than people think.
Dave Troy on Twitter / X
Fears over datacenters are distorted along a few important axes:1) anxiety over AI, future employment, and control; they symbolize what people fear they are losing,2) compute centralization, which is actually probably not going to actually occur, because of financial…— Dave Troy (@davetroy) August 21, 2026
Is the Left Making a ‘Massive Strategic Blunder’ on Data Centers?
A conversation with Holly Jean Buck, author of a buzzy story about Bernie Sanders’ proposal for a national data center moratorium.
Where Republicans and Democrats stand on AI data centers
Five charts exploring how Republicans and Democrats feel about AI data centers and what that might mean for the road ahead
Exclusive: Americans Now Overwhelmingly Oppose New Data Centers Near Them
A new Heatmap Pro poll shows a rapid shift in public opinion since last fall.
US views of how data centers affect the environment, energy costs, jobs and more
A broad majority of Americans have heard about data centers – the often-sprawling computing facilities that are popping up nationwide. But the public has mixed opinions about data centers’ impact…
A simple trick to fix the data center debate
Remove the status quo bias by asking "would we spend this much in tax revenue to avoid the externalities of the data center?"
Data Center Opponents Have Blocked Or Delayed Projects Worth Nearly $130 Billion In 2026 - Slashdot
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The first quarter of 2026 produced the most blocked and delayed data center projects on record, according to a new study shared with NBC News. The study -- conducted by Data Center Watch, a project of the AI intelligence firm 10a Labs that tracks lo...
Living in Data: A Citizen's Guide to a Better Information Future (Paperback)
Jer Thorp’s analysis of the word “data” in 10,325 New York Times stories written between 1984 and 2018 shows a distinct trend: among the words most closely associated with “data,” we find not only its classic companions “information” and “digital,” but also a variety of new neighbors—from “scandal” and “misinformation” to “ethics,” “friends,” and “play.”To live in data in the twenty-first century
