alt Hacker News> I can tell you, based on local examples, that politicians are setting up deals to bring in data centers without trying to build community support first. Not only that, they are often signing NDAs that prohibit them from telling voters what they have agreed to. It's no way to operate in a democracy, and voters are right to be angry.
People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property, or believing they should have some say in the "character" of their neighborhood that involves non-public land just doesnt make any sense to me.
Why do people think that because they have a house somewhere they should get the ability to freeze an entire town in time and disallow anyone to build anything. Seriously, where did this mindset come from?
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So many of these conversations come back to the problem of privatized gains and socialized losses.
Most things that create value have externalities. I kill the moss on my roof, then it rains and the chemicals go into the stream, then you try to go fishing and get skunked. I exerted my freedom as a private property owner and got the benefits; you paid for the drawbacks. We're all pulling from the same pile of resources, and the Earth doesn't care where your picket fence is.
Data centers incur expensive externalities and you're asking the general public to bear those costs -- or "pay those taxes," if that resonates more. I suppose NIMBYism is part of it, but we're not talking about ugly condos here, we're talking about towns running out of electricity: https://fortune.com/2026/05/12/lake-tahoe-data-center-49000-....
Your argument makes sense until you have a horrible neighbor. You can see it in action in a state like Montana which to my knowledge prohibits housing covenants. Want to park 12 cars that are rusting in your front yard? Do it! Neighbors can't do anything about it. But that does have the effect of lowering property value and degrading the neighborhood.
> People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property, or believing they should have some say in the "character" of their neighborhood that involves non-public land just doesnt make any sense to me.
Would you like me to buy the lot next to your house and set up a 3000W sound system pumping noise music 24 hours directly at your bedroom? Because that's what you're arguing for.
> People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property
Yes, I believe that’s called “society” and while we are all very disappointed about your personal liberties I’m afraid some compromises had to be made to allow people other than you to have property rights too.
NIMBYism has been popular for a long time. People really do want datacenters (or at least, the things that having datacenters enable).. they just want them somewhere else.
Strong private property rights have to come with some protections against others' externalities - otherwise your property is harmed.
Are you from Texas? Because Texas is what you get with a policy like that.
> People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property
If the data center existed in a vaccum, with no inputs or outputs, this argument would hold some weight.
Instead, they stress limited water supplies, cause power shortages, increase GHG emissions (which we, the public ultimately have to pay for, either through mitigation or dealing with the damage after the fact).
Oh, and also they may well have negative externalities to employment. They definitely have negative externalities to communication, the internet has been flooded with AIshit.
> People believing they are entitled to dictate what other people do with their property, or believing they should have some say in the "character" of their neighborhood
So... iron smeltery next door for you then? Acid rain?
Come on. There is reasonable concern for property rights and civil coexistence and then there's Randian Libertarian Claptrap, and you've hopped right into the deep end.
YES, government has a clear and obvious interest, as a matter of principle, in the regulation of land use and development. This doesn't change just because you think the government made a wrong decision in a particular instance. The solution is to fix the government. Go vote for datacenter candidates. Seems like no one else is.
This may come as a surprise to you, but people like living in pleasant surroundings.
Just because I own the land does not mean I can open an abattoir next to an elementary school.
Using land in different ways results in externalities that affect those around it.
The people of a community should have some right to protect themselves from those externalities. How that happens in practice is a deeply flawed, messy, ugly process, but collectively deciding where to draw the line is part of living together as a community.