Day: July 1, 2026

Data center projects continue to generate controversy around the country. In part, that’s because a variety of different groups have competing interests – some in favor of them, some opposed and others with no direct view on data centers themselves, but with concerns that relate to aspects of data center operations and effects.

As a scholar of environmental justice and urban land use, I’ve seen these various conflicting forces at work in Michigan. More than 30 large and small data center projects have been proposed in the state in the past two years alone, including one by the university where I work.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is enthusiastic about bringing technology companies to the state, even posing with tech company CEOs in photo ops at the sites of proposed data centers.

But not everyone is as excited. In just one example of the opposition these projects can face, the local water company where I live, the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority, told the state it would not supply water for cooling a data center that the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory had proposed within its service area.

So the University of Michigan proposed a different site in the next town over, Superior Township. That town manages its own water but gets its supply by buying it from both the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority and Ann Arbor township.

A look at some of the forces at play around these projects reveals the deep issues they raise. The fights about data centers can often take the form of collisions between companies and community members. But they also reflect conflict about social values, democratic systems and capitalist interests.

Tech companies

Tech companies have an obvious desire to store and process ever more data. And many key aspects of society rely on the data centers that have been built over the decades, serving websites, handling online purchases and delivering emails, text messages and alert notices.

The latest push is related to the anticipated demand for artificial intelligence systems in the business world and in people’s lives – and the resulting increased demand for computing capacity to process all those requests and filter through all the available information to provide responses.

The corporate pressures to grow, to continue increasing profits for shareholders and to squeeze more revenue from workers and assets keep these tech companies seeking more land on which to build more data centers. And the Michigan Legislature has openly courted tech companies, passing laws that exempt data center operators from sales and use taxes they would otherwise have to pay.

Electricity companies

Many power companies are regulated by state or local governments and are not allowed to make profits off maintaining existing service or selling electricity. Their profits come from building new power plants, new transformers and substations, and new power lines – and passing those costs along to customers, with a markup for profit.

A data center can require significant investment in power generation and transmission – a data center proposed by Google in Van Buren Township, Michigan, for example, would require “2.7 gigawatts of electricity – a massive amount of power equivalent to the demand of about 2 million homes,” according to a local news report.

So a power company is likely to be eager to capitalize on the opportunity for a new major customer and may be willing to endure some amount of public backlash.

Power companies that operate in small geographic areas are highly dependent on the success of the municipalities from which they draw their customers and in which they build their infrastructure. In these situations, they have a vested interest in local economic growth, specifically the movement to the area of companies that supply jobs and, therefore, workers. This drives them to get involved in local political decision-making by lobbying for zoning changes to enable data centers.

Larger utility companies that operate regionally or across entire states are less tied to the economic success of a specific municipality within their service area. But they are also able to target their influence at state lawmakers. For example, DTE Energy assured state lawmakers that the proposed data center in Van Buren Township would not raise customers’ power rates.

Community leaders

Community leaders and elected officials are often interested in the jobs that tech companies promise will come with the data centers, so they tend to support approval of permits, zoning amendments or other legal changes.

Although data centers don’t really create very many jobs, they do have the potential to contribute to local property taxes, which can appeal to small towns without many other options.

Cities and towns are always on the hunt for growth opportunities, seeking additional tax revenue. That can lead them to feel pressure to build new roads, modify their land-use ordinances and approve requests from companies wishing to build within their boundaries.

My research has found that this pressure exists even in shrinking or small cities. This pressure has increased as cities have sought to reduce taxes on residents. The solution they see to getting fewer dollars out of existing residents is to bring in more businesses, more industry and more new residents. That makes them interested in welcoming data centers.

However, not every community leader is on board with data centers. Some oppose them but feel hamstrung or powerless to stop or slow their progress, as occurred in Ypsilanti Township and in nearby Saline Township as well.

Everyday people

In many communities, everyday people concerned with noise, land use, water use and power use oppose the data centers.

They are also concerned about the costs data centers may impose on utility ratepayers, taxpayers and those who must experience the environmental effects. People’s power, exercised through democratic processes such as public hearings, ordinance revisions and elections, can be overwhelmed by the tech companies and aligned groups.

But voters do have power. In June 2026, Utah voters unseated a longtime legislative leader, state Senate President Stuart Adams, who had helped get approval for a massive data center in the northwestern part of the state.

Whether a data center moves forward in a municipality ends up being a matter of how public officials sort through the motivations and sociopolitical power of all these players.

Lauren Mullenbach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Twenty-five years ago, I attended a Fourth of July parade in Boston that has stuck with me.

The head drummer of the colonial fife and drum band was a Black man in a Revolutionary War costume, his dreadlocks peeking from under a powdered wig. As the parade stopped to lay a wreath at the Granary Burying Ground where founding fathers John Hancock and Samuel Adams are buried, a man placed a small stone on the memorial, a Jewish tradition of remembrance. A woman in a colorful sari marched alongside the parade as it continued toward the State House.

To me, then in the early stages of my career as an immigration scholar, the scene told a story of migration and incorporation: Africans forcibly brought here on slave ships in the 17th and 18th centuries, Eastern European Jews arriving in the 19th century, Asian immigrants in the 20th and 21st centuries.

I’m a sociologist who has studied immigration and civic engagement for more than 25 years, including citizenship acquisition, voter turnout and community engagement. In quantifying immigrants’ likelihood of becoming citizens and voting, I’ve come to see that healthy communities and strong societies require more than formal membership and turning out at the polls every few years; they require connecting with neighbors, feeling a sense of responsibility for one another and seeing each other as part of a shared democratic system.

Public celebrations – such as parades, festivals and even road races – can help with this. They play a critical role in society, incorporating the newest Americans into the community and creating a greater sense of belonging for everyone.

Building connection across differences

My recent book, “Beyond White Picket Fences: Evolution of an American Town,” documents how immigrant and ethnic groups have reshaped the historically white, Christian town of Wellesley, Massachusetts, over the past 100 years. Through nearly 100 in-depth interviews, participant observations and archival work – examining more than 20,000 articles, letters to the editor, advertisements and obituaries from the local newspaper throughout the 20th century – I came to see the role that public celebrations play in connecting people.

In an interview for my book, a lifelong Wellesley resident who identifies as Irish and Italian American recounted how her daughters – through Chinese families they danced alongside at a small local dance studio – ended up performing in the Chinese Language School’s Lunar New Year program.

Another community event, the Dreidel Dash, is a 5K begun by the local synagogue that lets Jewish residents take pride in their traditions while offering others a chance to learn. The race starts at the synagogue, where temple members can show newcomers around and explain why they eat food like latkes and jelly-filled donuts at Hanukkah. An Irish Catholic runner who won shabbat candles for finishing first in his division later told me he hadn’t known anything about shabbat beforehand. He learned something about Jewish culture because of his participation in a 5K.

These types of communal celebrations have been associated with feelings of empowerment, a sense of group belonging and collective action. French sociologist Émile Durkheim coined the term “collective effervescence” in the early 20th century to describe the connection, excitement and unity of shared experience, a joy only possible in community.

During my research, I found a social media response to an article reporting on Wellesley’s 2024 Lunar New Year’s Celebration that illustrated Durkheim’s sentiment: “Happy New Year to all!! What a great way to celebrate the Chinese heritage and share the ancient yet lively culture with our communities!!! Sharing helps understanding, sharing STOPS AAPI HATE!!!” AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander, an umbrella term for Americans with roots in parts of Asia and the Pacific Islands.

Creating new narratives

Public celebrations also help communities reshape how they think about themselves and how those outside their community think about them.

Over the past two years, I’ve developed a course on what it means to be a citizen in America today, taught with a colleague at the University of Pikeville in Kentucky. In April 2026, that collaboration led me to Kentucky’s Hillbilly Days, a three-day festival of music, food and culture.

“Hillbilly” has long been a slur against the people of Appalachia, but these Kentuckians have reclaimed it: They mock the stereotype by blackening their teeth and wearing straw hats and overalls, while celebrating their culture of bluegrass, clog dancing and the hard labor of coal mining. The festival lets them tell their region’s story of hardship, resilience and community on their own terms.

My visit also allowed me to learn about the history of the term “redneck,” a term with complex and contested meaning. Often used as an insult against Appalachians and Americans from the rural South, more generally the term has various origins: Some trace it to the sunburned necks of farmers; others tie it to the red bandanas worn by coal miners during the early-20th-century coal strikes — among the largest labor uprisings in U.S. history.

Images from those strikes show miners of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds – white and Black, American- and foreign-born – wearing red bandanas. At Hillbilly Days, people today wear red bandanas to reclaim that history and show pride in who they are and where they are from.

At the same time, new groups are being woven into the American tapestry: Asian, Mexican and Middle Eastern food trucks line the event, speaking to how the country’s evolving demographics are even showing up in rural Appalachia.

Rethinking what it means to be American

I now know that scene in Boston 25 years ago wasn’t an outlier. National holidays have long offered the opportunity to rethink what it means to be an American.

My archival research has found the pattern stretching back a century: an Italian band playing a concert at a 1917 Fourth of July parade, Chinese American residents donning dragon costumes in a 1971 Veterans Day parade, and Polish Americans showcasing traditional folk dancing in a 2026 Memorial Day Parade.

In my analysis, such participation helped immigrants find their place in society and helped longer-settled Americans see them as part of the American experiment. From St. Patrick’s Day to Cinco de Mayo, diversified public celebrations are cause and consequence of a national transformation that other scholars have documented as well.

According to a new survey, 85% of likely voters think the U.S. is a nation founded on shared ideals rather than on the character of its Anglo-Saxon settlers, as President Donald Trump has claimed.

Historian Yuval Harari argues the need for a form of nationalism, not the nationalism of exclusion and hate, but one of care for all the tribes of a nation.

“Without a strong national community,” he explains, “democracy cannot survive.”

Likewise, research shows that humans need social connection, joy and a sense of belonging to thrive. Communal celebrations have the power to provide, at least in part, these key ingredients.

Catherine Simpson Bueker receives funding from The Russell Sage Foundation and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation