We have 5000 data centers. China has less than 600. There is no reason to have 5000 data centers. They’re sucking up farm lands and taking people’s houses away from them.
“Sucking up farmland”
Yeah I can sacrifice a half section of my 64 sections here.
I don’t think you understand how empty our country is. They out data centers on the cheapest land they can find that is near a major gas pipeline, the grid, solar and winds. This means a crappy dry rocky pasture in NM or west Texas.
Okay, so construct them on sparsely populated non-farm land where water and power are abundant. The USA is a big place.
In 2020 ILLINOIS had 140 data centers, mostly in Chicago and NW suburbs but also Champaign, Bloomington, Peoria, Springfield, etc. The first of the modern data centers was in 2002 nationwide. Prior to 2025 Nationwide there were no complaints about the thousands of data centers nationwide.
There were a few complaints in 2025. There were more complaints in 1 month of 2026 than in all of 2025.
Why? Who is behind creating the Luddite fear of the new?
By 2026 the number in IL doubled. Pritzker &Co has given them “incentives” which is another word for welfare to data centers. The IL taxbase is leaving IL for TN, TX, GA, FL. Each data center on the edge of the loop pays $10 million or more in property taxes. IL is trying to keep that tax base by subsidizing it. Does that make sense?
Texas, etal do not offer the same subsidies.