America hates data centers.
Every dot is one public comment at a local-government meeting, January to August 2026.
No one spoke in favor at 73% of meetings.
Meetings with any support averaged 3 supportive comments each.
Water, quality of life, and public involvement are the top concerns.
Most are concrete, local complaints. One comment can raise several concerns, so the bars add up to more than 100%.
Distrust of the company or the council comes up in most meetings.
Each bar is the share of meetings where the theme came up at least once. Corruption and donor-money accusations count only when someone said them outright.
People don't believe promised benefits will materialize.
Each bar is the share of comments making that argument. Together they outnumber comments that mention any benefit at all, 2.4 to 1.
Big Tech gets named far more than the AI labs.
Google, Amazon, and Meta are mostly named in towns where they are not the builder. The AI labs are never the applicant and come up only by name. Model names count toward their maker.
AI comes up less than any of the top five concerns.
Most comments never mention AI. Comments that do oppose slightly more often: 95% against, versus 92% for the rest.
Red and blue counties oppose at the same rate.
Comments are split by how each meeting's county voted for president in 2024. The subjects differ: heavily Republican counties raise land and community character more, and heavily Democratic ones raise climate and environmental justice more. Heavily means a 2024 margin of 15 points or more, and the multiplier is how much more often the leading side raises it.
Rural vs Urban
Rural commenters raise farmland, community character, and property rights. Urban and suburban commenters raise public involvement, government distrust, pollution, and utility bills. Rural means a county outside any metro area.
Union workers are the only group that mostly supports data centers.
Roles are what speakers said they were, on the record. Union support is spread across 43 governments. More than half of data-center workers' support comes from two hearings, Cheyenne and Lowell, where the operator's own workforce turned out.
Talk of data centers at local meetings is up 22x since 2022.
This counts data-center mentions across every meeting Prophecy transcribes, on any topic. None of these meetings were collected because of data centers, so the rise is real. Q3 '26 covers July only.
America hates data centers.
Every dot is one public comment at a local-government meeting, January to August 2026.
No one spoke in favor at 73% of meetings.
Meetings with any support averaged 3 supportive comments each.
Water, quality of life, and public involvement are the top concerns.
Most are concrete, local complaints. One comment can raise several concerns, so the bars add up to more than 100%.
Distrust of the company or the council comes up in most meetings.
Each bar is the share of meetings where the theme came up at least once. Corruption and donor-money accusations count only when someone said them outright.
People don't believe promised benefits will materialize.
Each bar is the share of comments making that argument. Together they outnumber comments that mention any benefit at all, 2.4 to 1.
Big Tech gets named far more than the AI labs.
Google, Amazon, and Meta are mostly named in towns where they are not the builder. The AI labs are never the applicant and come up only by name. Model names count toward their maker.
AI comes up less than any of the top five concerns.
Most comments never mention AI. Comments that do oppose slightly more often: 95% against, versus 92% for the rest.
Red and blue counties oppose at the same rate.
Comments are split by how each meeting's county voted for president in 2024. The subjects differ: heavily Republican counties raise land and community character more, and heavily Democratic ones raise climate and environmental justice more. Heavily means a 2024 margin of 15 points or more, and the multiplier is how much more often the leading side raises it.
Rural vs Urban
Rural commenters raise farmland, community character, and property rights. Urban and suburban commenters raise public involvement, government distrust, pollution, and utility bills. Rural means a county outside any metro area.
Union workers are the only group that mostly supports data centers.
Roles are what speakers said they were, on the record. Union support is spread across 43 governments. More than half of data-center workers' support comes from two hearings, Cheyenne and Lowell, where the operator's own workforce turned out.
Talk of data centers at local meetings is up 22x since 2022.
This counts data-center mentions across every meeting Prophecy transcribes, on any topic. None of these meetings were collected because of data centers, so the rise is real. Q3 '26 covers July only.
10,202 voices are on the record. Here are 212 of them.
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