Did America Just Become a Nation of Luddites?

America should manage the data-center boom rather than block it, because its economic benefits are broader and its local costs smaller than public opinion suggests.

• A summer Annenberg survey found that 61% of U.S. adults opposed new local data centers, up 12 percentage points from spring; opposition reached 70% among people under 30, while support fell to 14%.
• Evidence cited in the article challenges the electricity-cost backlash: average retail power rates fell modestly as data centers expanded from 2015 to 2024, and USAFacts found no statistically significant link between state data-center capacity and residential-rate changes.
• Data centers use less than 0.5% of U.S. freshwater, while golf courses use roughly 30 times more; a Realtor.com comparison of 43 ZIP codes found no meaningful home-price effect, and one academic study measured gains of 3.5% in employment, 5.0% in wages, 4.7% in business establishments and 1.9% in median household income.
• Loudoun County expects about $1.3 billion in data-center equipment taxes next year, around 40% of its total tax revenue, after cutting residential property taxes for 10 consecutive years and eliminating its vehicle license fee.
• Construction spending has risen from about $10 billion annually for most of the past decade to nearly $70 billion per month, while CSIS estimates that the buildout will require 63,000 to 140,000 additional skilled workers.

Takeaway: The author supports Texas-style rules requiring projects to provide power, reuse water and avoid residential areas, while opposing blanket bans and subsidies; the later market review adds mixed signals for airlines, shipping and luxury goods, including JetBlue's 13.5% weekly decline, Estée Lauder's roughly 20% gain and a more than 10% July drop in Chinese luxury sales.