Across the country, communities are pushing back against data center development. With bans and moratoriums announced seemingly every week, the industry’s freedom to operate is at risk. A July 2026 Marquette Law School Poll found that 73% of U.S. adults believed the costs of data centers outweighed their benefits, up 11 percentage points since January.
Some community concerns are tangible, such as higher energy costs, water use and noise. Others are rooted in local identity and deeply held beliefs. Residents fear losing their community’s character, ceding local control to distant entities and the broader effects of AI on society. In some areas, opposition has even taken on religious dimensions.
Data center development has become an emotional issue that facts alone cannot resolve. Will developers adapt before the risk becomes even more costly?
Trust is built through transparency
The traditional site selection process often means community engagement begins too late. Developers have legitimate reasons for maintaining confidentiality, but the process can create a significant information gap. By the time a project becomes public through a rezoning notice or public hearing, the developer may have secured land, negotiated incentives, consulted utilities and invested heavily in engineering.
What developers view as the start of engagement can feel to residents like the end of a decision-making process that excluded them. Once residents believe information was withheld, trust erodes and subsequent studies, messages and actions face greater skepticism. The political risks are growing, too. Officials have lost elections after negotiating with developers under nondisclosure agreements, and Pennsylvania’s recent ban on NDAs involving data centers could influence other jurisdictions.
Community engagement is not always a prerequisite for industrial development. But an industry whose freedom to operate is front page news should learn from other industries that have experience building trust and minimizing opposition. Companies that engage early, intentionally and transparently are more likely to earn the trust needed to navigate controversial projects and unexpected challenges.
Facts alone don’t build acceptance
Building acceptance on emotionally charged topics is not easy. People interpret facts through their experiences, identities, values and trust in the messenger. Communities deserve credible projections of a project’s resource use, noise, emissions, jobs, tax revenue and infrastructure needs, but data alone will not build trust. When residents ask whether a project will change their community’s character, they want to know that the developer understands what could be lost and cares about protecting it.
Genetically modified foods offer a useful parallel. Agribusiness companies initially assumed opposition resulted from a lack of information and that more evidence of safety would ease concerns. Public sentiment became more negative between 2016 and 2018 before stabilizing. Over time, the industry learned that resistance declined when companies acknowledged concerns and connected the technology to benefits consumers valued.
Data center developers face a comparable challenge. Technical evidence remains essential, but it becomes persuasive only when communities believe they have been treated with transparency and respect. Residents need to see themselves as participants in the process, not obstacles to overcome.
Build community engagement into development strategy
In many data center development processes, communications professionals get involved too late, after important decisions have been made. Their role is then limited to explaining and defending those decisions.
When involved early, strategic communications can provide critical risk intelligence. Communications professionals can help determine whether a technically attractive site is socially viable. They can identify stakeholders, expose gaps between the project’s promised benefits and the community’s priorities, assess the implications of local history and determine where the project’s design, commitments or process may need to change before positions harden.
Their involvement can also help development, legal and engineering teams understand what the land means to the community, whom residents trust, how they view the project’s benefits and costs, and what information can be shared without compromising commercial interests.
Industries involved in contaminated site remediation, major infrastructure development and controversial technologies have accumulated decades of relevant experience from which data center developers can learn.
Data center developers cannot eliminate opposition, but they can reduce avoidable conflict by treating communication as part of the development strategy. Those that engage communities early, listen to what residents value and allow that input to shape their plans will be better positioned to earn trust and move projects forward.
Other industries have learned valuable lessons about overcoming information gaps, connecting facts to stakeholder needs and involving communications before positions harden. In the second part of this series, we will explore five practices data center developers can apply to strengthen community trust and reduce project risk.
