Meet the Gen Zers fighting back against AI data centers—70% of young adults don’t want one in their town
Source: Fortune ·
Young voters say the AI buildout is driving up their bills and pricing them out of the future. Days before the midterms, they’re packing council meetings, and governors are paying attention.
From the source
Elijah Lee has spent years listening to Virginia lawmakers talk about data centers. At 18, he’s done listening. Lee is high school chapters coordinator for Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z–led political advocacy group. He lives in the state often called the data center capital of the world, since Virginia has more data centers than anywhere else on the planet. Now he’s helping young people across the country push back against them. “It’s difficult to break the data center issue into one piece, but for young people, we know what data centers mean long-term,” Lee said. He has plenty of company. A University of Pennsylvania Annenberg Public Policy Center survey conducted this summer found that 70% of adults under 30 oppose new data centers in their area. That compares with 61% of all adults and 57% of those 65 and older. The researchers called it a reversal of the usual pattern, in which younger Americans are quicker to embrace new technology. In Pennsylvania, the gap is wider still: 83% of…