Communities are fighting back.
Case studies of communities fighting against being on the menu. Referendums, moratoriums, packed hearings and primary upsets — and every one of them sourced.
Texas
The state with the biggest buildout has the loudest fights.
A city banned data centers outright
In February, residents packed City Hall over a 200-acre project that could pull more than 25 million gallons of water a year from local aquifers. The council said no to annexation, then passed a citywide ban in June — a direct test of the state law that limits local control.
Water advocates take on five projects at once
Advocates identified five proposed data center developments to contest across the county. The county floated a moratorium on water-hungry permits — then stalled after another Texas county was sued for trying the same thing.
Residents forced the zoning fight into the open
Zoning commissioners rejected the city's proposed data center rules and sent them back to the council after organized residents showed up over noise, power and water.
Projects, players and races on our Texas page.
North Carolina
“Moratorium fever” is spreading county by county.
At least 11 counties and 17 towns hit pause
Since February, local governments across North Carolina — Apex, Durham, Chatham County, Orange County and more — have enacted moratoriums on new data centers, driven by Facebook groups, petitions and packed hearings over power demand, water, noise and neighborhoods.
Track how each central NC county is responding
WRAL keeps a running map of every data center proposal in central North Carolina and what each county has done about it.
Projects, players and races on our North Carolina page.
Wisconsin
A small city passed the nation's first anti-data-center referendum.
66% voted to make Big Tech ask permission
Residents and the grassroots group Great Lakes Neighbors United forced a referendum in response to Vantage's $15 billion AI campus for OpenAI and Oracle. About 66% of voters approved it: any development incentive over $10 million now needs voter approval. It was the first vote of its kind in the country.
Villagers forced their own referendum
After residents packed board meetings over the 1,900-acre Cloverleaf project tied to Vantage, the village board agreed to put data centers to a public vote.
Residents said no, and the developer left
Cloverleaf ended its pursuit of a Greenleaf site in January after residents and local officials made clear they opposed it.
Michigan
Towns that said no got sued. Voters answered at the ballot box.
A town of 2,300 said no. Big Tech sued.
Residents and the township board voted down a $7 billion, 1.4-gigawatt OpenAI and Oracle “Stargate” campus on 575 acres of farmland. Developer Related Digital sued, and the township settled rather than face the legal bill. Residents are still fighting: a challenge under the Open Meetings Act was denied in February.
Two hours of public comment killed a $1 billion project
After a unanimous six-month moratorium driven by resident outcry, the developer of a proposed 1,000-acre data center withdrew. At least 19 Michigan towns have paused data centers.
A township versus the University of Michigan
The township board passed a formal resolution opposing the university's $1.2 billion computing center with Los Alamos National Laboratory, and residents kept the pressure on at town halls into September.
Anti-data-center candidates swept primaries
Data centers became a defining issue in races across Michigan, and at least 14 candidates who ran against them beat pro-data-center opponents in both parties' primaries.
Ohio
More communities have hit pause here than in any state we track.
Over 125 active moratoriums
As of mid-September, at least 138 Ohio municipalities and townships had active moratoriums on data centers, and roughly two dozen communities had effectively banned them, with more considering it across seven counties. A Bowling Green State University poll found 78% of Ohioans support moratoriums until more is known about the effects.
Regulators made data centers carry their own load
Ohio regulators approved an AEP Ohio tariff requiring large data centers to pay for at least 85% of their committed power over 12-year contracts — a structure meant to keep buildout costs from landing on households.
Citizens took it to the constitution
After hours of resident testimony urging a statewide pause, petitioners launched a proposed constitutional amendment to let voters decide whether big data centers can plug in. Meanwhile, an industry group launched a PR campaign to sell skeptical towns on the facilities.
Iowa
County by county, Iowans are writing the rules before the next project arrives.
Facing its third data center, a county wrote the rulebook
Home already to Google and a 612-acre, 1.05-gigawatt QTS campus in Cedar Rapids, the county rolled out extensive zoning rules; some residents called for a full moratorium, with one asking why the county had become “a dumping ground for soon-to-be obsolete technology.”
A moratorium, and neighbors defending it
Buchanan County voted to temporarily ban new data centers; in Des Moines County, residents packed supervisor meetings urging the board to keep its moratorium in place while an ordinance is drafted.
The rules are spreading
At least six cities and ten counties across Iowa have considered policies to regulate data centers, with moratoriums running three to eighteen months, over concerns about water, energy, noise and how few local jobs the projects may bring.
Nebraska
Google's water use here grew fifteenfold in three years. Counties noticed.
The state's first ban
Otoe County approved a moratorium on new data centers of up to a year — the first Nebraska county to do so — with planning commissions in Cass, Gage and Garfield counties recommending pauses of their own.
More than 100 residents showed up; the board said no anyway
A hundred-plus residents urged commissioners to pause rural data center applications; the moratorium failed 3–2, on its third attempt.
46.6 million gallons to 732 million
Company data showed Google's three Nebraska data centers consumed roughly 732 million gallons in 2025, up from 46.6 million in 2022, as Nebraskans began taking a hard look at what the facilities draw.
Kansas
Towns that said no are finding out how little the decision was theirs.
The planning commission said no. The council said it couldn't.
After community pushback, Edgerton's planning commission denied a $700 million data center application — then the city council rejected a proposed moratorium 3–2, the second Johnson County community to decline a pause in a month, with officials suggesting the city may not be able to stop a project residents don't want.
$3.1 billion, already underway
Despite resident opposition, a $3.1 billion data center campus is proceeding in De Soto, with a seven-to-nine-year build-out.
A backlash that unites towns
Data center fights have pushed small Kansas and Missouri towns into a shared backlash against big tech and the lawmakers smoothing its way — part of a trend national reporting says is growing. Meanwhile, an industry-funded group has run ads selling data centers to Kansas voters.
Don't wait for the rezoning notice.
Six demands communities have made of their town, state and federal leaders — read them here.