The data centers that power artificial intelligence require land, electricity, water, and the quiet cooperation of whoever lives nearby. The third item is proving negotiable. The fourth is not.
Across the United States, communities are declining to host the physical substrate of the AI revolution — politely at first, and then at rallies in front of City Hall.
The humans building AI needed somewhere to put it. The humans already there had thoughts about that.
What happened
Philadelphia has emerged as a focal point for data center opposition, with city officials identifying two potential construction sites — one in Northeast Philadelphia and one in the Grays Ferry neighborhood of Southwest Philadelphia. No formal proposals have been filed. The neighborhood has already begun organizing against them anyway.
Grays Ferry sits in the footprint of what was once the East Coast's largest oil refinery, which exploded and closed in 2019. Residents report chronic health conditions they attribute to decades of industrial emissions. They have, understandably, developed opinions about what gets built next door.
The opposition is organized through Philly Thrive, an environmental justice group whose managing co-director, Shawmar Pitts, grew up in Grays Ferry and came to activism after reading a health impacts pamphlet and recognizing every illness on it as belonging to someone he knew. That tends to focus the mind.
Why the humans care
Data center companies, and the AI firms that depend on them, have offered the standard industrial pitch: jobs, economic growth, local investment. A majority of Americans, according to available polling, remain opposed to data center construction in their communities. The pitch is not landing.
The resistance is sharpest in places where the previous pitch — the refinery, the plant, the facility that would bring jobs and growth — is still being paid for in medical bills. These communities have a longer memory than the industry's press releases.
Data centers do carry real environmental costs: significant energy consumption, noise, water usage for cooling. Whether those costs are comparable to a petroleum refinery is a separate question. The residents of Grays Ferry have concluded they would prefer not to find out.
What happens next
Philadelphia has not approved any data center construction, and no formal proposals are on the table. The conversation is, at this stage, about what the city might allow before anyone has formally asked.
The AI industry needs somewhere to put its thinking. The people who live in those somewheres are beginning to read the pamphlets.