The data center mob wants your property rights too

The war on data centers has intensified to the point that localities across the country are banning them outright or stopping them through targeted zoning and regulation. The concerns are understandable. The political response is not.

Public opposition has jumped 12 percentage points in four months, with 61% now saying they oppose building new data centers, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Opponents held 142 protests in 42 states on July 18, citing water use, noise, electricity demand, outages, pollution, and property values.

There is an obvious alternative for people who do not want a data center built on a particular parcel: Buy the land.

Predictably, politicians are turning against the industry.

On August 18, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) signed an executive order restricting data center construction and boasted that he was imposing “the strictest guardrails in the nation.” He denounced a history of industry “running roughshod over our communities to make a buck” and vowed that Pennsylvania would not be “bullied” or “bulldozed” by developers and their lawyers.

Critics noted that Shapiro, who faces re-election this year, had strongly supported data center construction and even placed projects in a fast-track approval program before the recent grassroots backlash.

The turn is broader than Pennsylvania. Some 210 counties and local governments now have active moratoriums on data center construction. More than 3,000 centers are operating in the United States, with another 1,500 under construction, Pew Research reports. Two-thirds of planned facilities are headed to rural areas, while 87% of existing data centers are urban.

It is reasonable to worry about harm from any large enterprise. Citizens have every right to warn property owners and neighbors about potential costs. They often have a moral responsibility to do so.

But concern does not create a general right to control someone else’s property.

No one can foresee all the consequences, positive or negative, of a novel enterprise. That is one reason we have courts: to hear claims of actual harm, determine responsibility, and order compensation or punishment where warranted. A functioning civil justice system reduces the need for sprawling systems of preemptive command and control.

Governments should not single out data centers with punitive taxes or regulations, nor should they subsidize them. Let them pay for the energy they use, comply with laws that apply generally, receive no privileged access to water or other resources, and answer in court if they injure others.

RELATED: The data center backlash is getting spiritual

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That is a better rule than trying to calculate every hypothetical “social cost” in advance and empowering regulators to decide which enterprises may proceed. Markets reveal costs and benefits imperfectly, but government regulation does too — usually with fewer incentives to admit mistakes.

In a free society, you do not get to decide what other people do with their property merely because you dislike the proposed use. That remains true when “you” becomes “we.” A majority does not acquire a moral right to coerce simply by counting heads.

There is an obvious alternative for people who do not want a data center built on a particular parcel: Buy the land.

If you cannot afford it alone, put together a consortium. If you can afford it but would rather force the owner to accept your preferred use without paying him, then the problem is no longer the data center. It is your claim to control property you do not own.

Buy it, and you may use it as you wish — subject, of course, to the same rule protecting your neighbors from actual harm. Mission accomplished.

The developer will go somewhere else, taking the jobs, local tax revenue, and other economic benefits to a community that wants them more.

That process is not perfect. Nothing involving human beings is. But voluntary exchange does a better job of matching scarce resources with people willing to bear their costs than political systems in which the loudest coalition simply vetoes uses it dislikes.

Unfortunately, that is no longer good enough for a growing number of Americans. The backlash against data centers parallels the rise of democratic socialism in one important respect: Both elevate collective control over individual property rights.

People who want to build data centers should listen seriously to objections. They should pay their own way and answer for the harm they cause. But the reflexive demand to control other people’s property because a project is unpopular reflects a much older political decay.

Restoring property rights is essential to renewing American prosperity and human flourishing. Data centers would be a good place to start.