This week’s Zoning In highlights a troubling trend for the data center industry: opposition continues to accelerate across the country. A new report from Data Center Watch found that at least 75 projects representing more than $130 billion in investment were delayed or canceled during the first quarter of 2026 alone—already surpassing the number of construction setbacks reported during all of last year. At the same time, the number of organized opposition groups has more […]
This week’s headlines suggest that, in many cases, the data center industry continues to repeat mistakes it should have learned from by now. Across the country, communities are demanding greater transparency, more meaningful engagement, and a stronger voice in decisions that will shape their future. In Virginia, residents say they were blindsided by a gas-powered data center operating next to their neighborhood. In New Mexico, a long-promised community meeting sparked frustration after residents felt their […]
Among the most notable developments this week was entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary’s admission that he “screwed up” the rollout of the controversial Stratos Project in Utah’s Box Elder County. While his acknowledgment that developers failed to adequately address community and environmental concerns is significant, the damage may already be done. Given O’Leary’s national profile, the project has become one of the industry’s most visible examples of how poor community engagement can fuel opposition and shape public […]
Among the most notable developments in this week’s Zoning In is environmental activist Erin Brockovich launching a national map designed to track data center projects and community concerns, potentially giving local opposition groups both a centralized platform and a high-profile advocate. In New York, nearly 500 small business owners joined calls for greater oversight of the industry, further expanding the coalition of residents, environmental groups, and elected officials pushing for tighter scrutiny of data center […]
Deployment strengthens connectivity for enterprises, cloud providers, and carriers across Nebraska and the Midwest LINCOLN, Neb.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Hurricane Electric, the world’s largest IPv6-native Internet backbone, announced today that it has established a new Point of Presence (PoP) at Lincoln Data Centers. The new PoP is located at 206 South 13th Street, Lincoln NE. Lincoln Data Centers provides a carrier-neutral interconnection and colocation environment purpose-built for organizations with expanding connectivity requirements. The facility combines diverse fiber infrastructure, access […]
This week’s Zoning In suggests the data center debate may be entering a new phase. Communities are no longer waiting for projects to arrive; they’re passing moratoriums, rewriting zoning codes, organizing recall efforts, commissioning studies, and, in some cases, outright banning data centers before proposals even materialize. At the same time, new polling and research reinforce something we’ve been saying for months: opposition is often less about rejecting technology itself and more about trust, transparency, […]
The data center industry has standardized just about everything. There are established frameworks for uptime, redundancy, resiliency, and operational reliability. Organizations like the Uptime Institute created a common language that helps operators, customers, and other stakeholders understand what a Tier III or Tier IV facility actually means. The standards are measurable. They are repeatable. And they are trusted. As the industry races to build the infrastructure powering the AI economy, there’s one area where almost […]
This week’s Zoning In further underscores that community opposition to data centers remains organized, political, and increasingly mainstream. From Coachella’s supervisor rescinding support after backlash, to new moratoriums emerging in Texas, Ohio, New Mexico, and New York, communities are demanding greater transparency, more local control, and clearer answers around water usage, power demand, noise, and long-term infrastructure impacts. At the same time, a new Gallup poll showing that 7 in 10 Americans oppose data centers […]
From Texas and Arizona to Massachusetts and New Jersey, this week’s Zoning In underscores how the data center debate has evolved far beyond isolated zoning disputes, with opposition now taking the form of lawsuits, moratoriums, coordinated grassroots campaigns, and growing political scrutiny at both the local and state levels. When developers fail to proactively educate, engage, and localize the conversation early, that vacuum is quickly filled by opposition groups, political pressure, and misinformation. Increasingly, the […]
This week’s Zoning In is a reminder that the industry’s biggest risk isn’t always power, water, or even politics; it’s process. Case in point: this week’s data center meeting in Oklahoma that was cut short after the media was denied entry and residents’ questions went unanswered. Not only did it inflame concerns, but it also validated them. In an environment where trust is already thin, how you show up matters just as much as what […]
