Monterey Park, California has banned any data centers within its city limits
Source: Engadget
Monterey Park's city council has moved to ban construction of any data centers within its borders. The California city's leaders placed a permanent ban on these buildings, labelling them a public nuisance. A proposed plan to construct a 250,000 square foot data center was stopped after residents and advocates pushed back against the project.
Tech journalist Brian Merchant reported on the public comment phase of the city council meeting where residents spoke decisively about data centers. "I can tell you that this issue has brought left, right and center together. It’s a quality of life issue," one commenter said. "Don’t let the rich steal our future."
Monterey Park may be the first US city to lay down the law blocking data center projects, but others are primed to follow suit. New York's state leadership is working on legislation that would prevent data center construction for three years. Maine has a similar bill that has already made it to the governor's desk. At the federal level, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have proposed a ban on building new data centers until there are more guardrails in place for AI development and environmental security.
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Read more: https://www.engadget.com/ai/monterey-park-california-has-banned-any-data-centers-within-its-city-limits-180426656.html
From Brian Merchant's report today:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/monterey-park-becomes-the-first-city
The vote came after an hours-long public comment period, in which dozens of Monterey Park residents spoke out against the prospect of new data center construction, and after months of community organizing galvanized opposition to the project. No Data Centers Monterey Park (NDCMP), a small band of concerned citizens, and the San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action, a local activist group, made headlines earlier this year when they successfully pushed the city to halt a proposed data center project.
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“I can tell you that this issue has brought left, right and center together. It’s a quality of life issue,” another said. “Don’t let the rich steal our future.” Another: “We are against this oligarchic techno-fascist future.” Still another held his phone up to the mic while he played an audio file of a recording of a hyperscaler’s data center; it sounded like gnarled white noise. Comment after comment; story after story. I remarked on the sheer volume to someone seated nearby; they told me I should have seen the last hearing. It was so packed that a line went out the door, there were hundreds of comments not dozens, and the hearing lasted six hours.
This night, the only votes in support of the project came from members of a building union, who arrived in matching orange vests, and argued that the work would create jobs for their membership. (“We’re here for the work, we’re here for our families,” one said.) Some residents, meanwhile, pointed out that they weren’t against labor—and many highlighted their own union membership—but rather the thing they wanted to build. One pointed out that the builders didn’t live in the city; they asked for a show of hands of who lived locally, and none of theirs went up.
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