alt Hacker NewsI don't think the entire nation would ban data centers. The problem is that tech companies are building them on cheap land. Which usually means land that has little water and is better used for food or oxygen or things other than a massive one-story building.
Data centers in brownfields and urban environments see near-zero resistance. There are data centers in skyscrapers in the center of most major U.S. cities, and nobody cares.
Stop plowing down the forests, slurping up the aquifers, and digging up the prairies, and people will stop complaining.
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People are complaining because they are building data centers near people, and data centers produce prodigious amounts of noise pollution. They should be building them far away from civilization, where the low frequency noise has plenty of distance to attenuate.
Data centers in urban areas definitely see massive resistance. Seattle straight up banned any new data centers with a capacity over 20 MW, even though water is a non-issue, and we have tons of industrial land in the south of the city.