NIMBY

Expect the Data Center Backlash To Get Worse

Despite their limited negative externalities and extreme economic importance, people's hatred of data centers is only growing.

Christian Britschgi | 5.7.2026 4:10 PM

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In a recent meeting of the Box Elder County Commission in Tremonton, Utah, a man yelled at the cloud. 

"It's false. This is not real information," shouted an attendee at the assembled commissioners, who were considering a massive new data center project backed by celebrity billionaire Kevin O'Leary, in a video posted to X by progressive group More Perfect Union. 

Kevin O'Leary's massive data center was approved by a county commission in Utah last night.

At 40,000 acres, it would be 2.5x the size of Manhattan.

The commission approved the proposal despite opposition from hundreds of locals. pic.twitter.com/1pF9JZD30w

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 5, 2026

Members of the crowd can be heard chanting "shame, shame, shame" at the commissioners in the video. 

Ultimately, the three members of the Box Elder County Commission chose to live with the shame and sign off on the O'Leary-backed Project Stratos, which will provide data services to the military. 

"We need to realize and remember that everybody has property rights," Commissioner Tyler Vincent said at the meeting per The Salt Lake Tribune, "and that they can do what they would like to do with their property."

Elsewhere in the country, a growing number of local officials are abandoning property rights........

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