A data center playbook every community can use

New research from Syracuse University argues that communities battling AI data centers should borrow directly from the playbook developed a decade ago to fight fracking. These findings are from Syracuse University Associate Teaching Professor and urban planning expert Austin Zwick and published in the Journal of the American Planning Association.  Zwick contends both fracking and data centers impose nearly identical local burdens on things like water use and road damage from construction trucks. Both fracking and data centers share a pattern of high construction employment followed by low permanent job counts, and industry-funded studies have consistently overstated the numbers for both. Meanwhile, a fiscal mismatch leaves municipalities absorbing infrastructure costs while states collect the tax revenue and political credit. Planners already have the tools to handle it if they apply what fracking-era communities learned the hard way.
 

The main lesson: don't try to ban, and instead, work to regulate. Outright bans on fracking were mostly overturned by states and the same is already happening with data centers in West Virginia. Targeted local rules, by contrast, have held up.  Imposing setback requirements, performance bonds, noise and light standards, conditional-use review, and enforceable community benefits agreements have led to much more favorable outcomes. Loudoun County, Virginia, which ended automatic by-right approval for data centers in favor of public hearings and conditional permits, is offered as the model worth copying.

Zwick says a roadmap comes down to four moves communities can make before a developer’s proposal:

1. Pass zoning and disclosure rules proactively
2. Regulate rather than ban data centers outright
3. Prioritize costs local government can least afford, including road damage, water supply, and electricity rates
4. Build in equity protections from the start, as disadvantaged communities historically absorb the worst of the coal, fracking, and now data center booms.

All of this comes with a caveat. Unlike fracking, AI data centers can be built almost anywhere there is power and fiber. This is one reason why construction spending on data centers is up 331% since 2021. That geographic flexibility is exactly why Zwick warns any community near transmission lines, fiber corridors, or a water supply should treat itself as a potential site, even if a proposal has not surfaced yet.  The bottom line: communities can't stop the industry from knocking, but the fracking-era experience shows they have more leverage over the terms it arrives on if they act before the first shovel hits the ground.