Staff Reports
The new Milltown Partners poll landed like a splash of cold water on the data‑center panic brigade. It shows most Americans who say they oppose data centers don’t actually live near one. In plain English: a lot of the outrage is coming from people who are worried about the idea of AI and big tech, not about real projects in their backyards.
The poll that matters
What Milltown Partners actually found
Milltown surveyed roughly 6,800 registered voters and found that 38% would support a data center near their home while 34% would oppose one. Nearly half — 49% — said they’d back a temporary moratorium on new builds, and only 16% opposed a moratorium. The striking detail: only about 8% of people who oppose data centers said they know of one near them. In short, opposition looks more like a national mood about AI, energy and fairness than classic NIMBYism.
Backlash is mostly about fear, not fences
That should matter to everyone. When people oppose things they don’t experience firsthand, the debate shifts from practical fixes to symbolic gestures. The Milltown folks are right to say this is about broader anxiety: higher electric bills, water use for cooling, secret deals and sweetheart tax breaks. Add in distrust of tech elites and a healthy dose of fear of job loss, and you get the political stew simmering across the country. It’s a coalition with strange bedfellows — even conservative groups like Humans First are planning protests — because worry about out‑of‑control AI cuts across the usual left‑right lines.
Policy fallout: moratoria, delays and real costs
Those fears are already costing money and jobs. Trackers show dozens of projects blocked or delayed — roughly 75 projects in one quarter — representing about $130 billion in planned development. States are reacting: the New York legislature passed a bill to pause large hyperscale permits and order new reviews, leaving Governor Kathy Hochul with a choice; Maine’s earlier moratorium fight even drew a veto from Governor Janet Mills. The result? Higher permitting risk, longer timelines, and projects moved or shrunk. That raises the cost of compute, slows investment, and can turn potential local hires into missed opportunities.
Don’t punish progress; fix the process
There are real tradeoffs here, and reasonable people can disagree. But the answer isn’t reflexive moratoria or virtue signalling. We need straightforward steps: honest local negotiation about water and power, smarter cooling tech to cut water use, binding community benefits and transparent tax deals, and real environmental reviews — not political posturing. If the U.S. lets fear of progress drive policy, we won’t stop AI; we’ll just push the jobs, investment and control overseas. That would be the true own goal.
The Milltown poll should be a wake‑up call to leaders on both sides: treat local concerns seriously, explain the tradeoffs clearly, and stop pretending that banning a factory-sized computer will make the future go away. Reasonable rules and better talks beat blanket bans and angry rallies — and they do a lot more to protect communities and keep America competitive.
