There was a time in the not-too-distant past when the idea of a data center establishing itself in your community sounded wonderful in areas where jobs were scarce and local funds were limited.
But increasingly that swell of approval has turned into a wave of distrust as communities see the stress the massive land, water and power needs of these facilities impose on once-tranquil neighborhoods, as well as the noise created by massive cooling systems and other equipment that operate throughout the day and increased traffic.
As a result, cities and states in many parts of the country have adopted – or are considering adopting – moratoriums on issuing permits for new data centers. The moratoriums are designed to allow local officials to assess the impacts of data centers and develop appropriate rules for approving them.
According to the National Council of State Legislatures, 14 states had introduced bills to establish moratoriums on future data centers as of April this year. None has yet passed. The relevant bill in Maine was vetoed by Governor Janet Mills and similar laws failed to pass in New Hampshire and Wisconsin.
At the local level, however, moratoriums have been more successful. In North Carolina, for example, new moratoriums were recently approved after scores of residents attended public meetings to voice their opposition, according to the NC Data Center Newsletter. Swain County, Chatham County, Orange County, Rowan County and the towns of Clyde and Apex each imposed one-year moratoriums – with some residents calling for longer or even permanent moratoriums. The city of Durham will hold a public hearing in May to consider a two-year moratorium.
Opposition to the data center in Apex caused the developer, Natelli, to withdraw its proposal and move it to Vance County, where land was rezoned to accommodate the facility.
A data center already under construction in Rowan County will not be affected under state law. And Richmond County has welcomed Amazon, which has broken ground on a $10 billion data center campus it is constructing, with up to 20 buildings at full build-out, each likely to span more than 200,000 sqaure feet (18,580 sqm), according to news reports.
North Carolina is far from the only state where local governments have paused data center development. As of April 2026, there are over 50 local data center moratoriums in effect across the U.S., according to the organization Good Jobs First.
Another technique some state governments are considering to control the proliferation of data centers is to withdraw or deny tax exemptions to data center developers. During Georgia's state legislative session, which recently ended, the Senate voted to end the generous exemptions, but the bill failed in the House. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans.
Georgia recently updated the tally of lost income due to projected tax incentives for data centers to $2.5 billion in 2026, a 664% increase from the $327 million estimate published eight months earlier, as reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The exemptions will remain in place until 2031-2032.
Yet the anger over the huge data centers springing up across the state has become a political hot potato, as residents of nearby communities vent their concerns.
According to an Emerson College poll taken in March, a plurality of Georgia voters (47%) oppose data centers being built in or near their community, while 31% support it. Opposition in Georgia is five points higher than the national level. It has become a plank in the platform of U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and other officials who oppose additional data centers and are running for election.
Rural communities in the state often suffer the brunt of the impacts. According to a report from the Pew Research Center, more than 1,500 data centers are in various stages of development around the nation and 67% are in rural areas, with three-quarters located in the South and Midwest.
"Currently, 38% of Americans live within five miles of at least one operational data center," the report said. Since data centers tend to be in clusters, 42% of the population lives close to an existing or planned data center, it added.
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