By showing up in mass (especially for a small, rural town), Kalkaska, MI made it pretty clear that data centers weren’t welcome there. It even drew attention of a senator. But it’s an interesting case. Matt Rine, the person who proposed the data center project, was “playing nice” compared to other larger companies that head these kinds of projects. Instead of bulldozing into rural communities regardless of consent from local communities, Rine was scoping out public opinion first and taking it into consideration before moving beyond the conceptualization phase.

Data centers in rural areas need local support to supplement the labor to build and run these facilities which can give locals a lot of power to dictate if one is built there. But support and accurate representation of the people in these rural communities from the local government seems pivotal. This article describes a situation in the same state where locals and local government initially rejected the development of a data center. But after the company sued the township, the township turned back around and accepted the data center project. Township officials claimed they didn’t want the costs of the legal battle to fall onto the taxpayers. But really, they just caused far more costly issues that will ultimately fall onto the residents in the future.

I’d love to hear of other success stories in rejecting data center building. If you have any, share them!