Data Center Backlash Divides Small Pennsylvania Town

Tensions are rising in Archbald, PA, over plans for dozens of new data centers that will span hundreds of acres in the tiny borough.

The city of 7,000 is divided over developers' plans to build six data center campuses that would include 51 data warehouses that would each be about the size of a Walmart Supercenter, according to the Washington Post.

Many residents are organizing and pushing back against the data centers, which would cover around 14% of the town’s land.

Sarah Gabriel, co-founder of the Archbald Neighborhood Association, tells Realtor.com®: "We are fighting back against data center development through three main channels: local government, public awareness, and legal challenges. We speak out at meetings and voice our concerns and make suggestions to our elected officials."

Many of the Archbald City Council members and planning board members have reportedly resigned in the past month, with some allegedly fearing for their safety.

“This debate has destroyed this community,” Mayor Shirley Barrett told the Post. “We want answers, but we have no clue what is going on because this is all happening so quickly.”

Proposed data centers

Located near the 500-kilovolt Susquehanna–Roseland power line, Archbald has ample water resources and open land left behind after most coal mines in the area closed in the early 1900s—which makes it particularly attractive to data center developers.

Archbald updated its zoning ordinance in 2023 to permit data centers, explicitly including what it termed an “internet server building.” Following that change, numerous data center projects have been proposed in the area.

One such project, Project Gravity, calls for seven two-story data center buildings, each measuring 138,000 square feet, spread across more than 180 acres in Archbald.

Developers have reportedly already cleared trees from the site, a move that has sparked anger among local residents.

Another proposal, Wildcat Ridge, envisions 14 two-story data centers to be developed on 400 acres of wooded land.

Archbald residents share concerns

Joseph Pullman, whose three-bedroom house is about 900 feet from the proposed Wildcat Ridge campus, told the Post, "I didn’t work 38 years to sit here and listen to a data center, 24/7, 365 days a year."

Gabriel tells Realtor.com that many Archbald residents are worried about the environmental, social, and economic impacts the data centers will have on their community.

She lists a wide range of concerns, including water use, electricity use, pollution, green house gas emissions, deforestation noise pollution, light pollution, rising utility costs, and decreased property values.

"Data centers will replace green space with concrete buildings in our town," she says. "This will lower the quality of life for residents."

What are data centers?

Data centers are facilities designed to store, process, and manage large amounts of digital information used to train, run, and scale artificial intelligence systems.

They contain servers and networking equipment, supported by power and cooling systems that maintain proper operating temperatures.

Currently, there are more than 4,200 data centers throughout the country, with Virginia and Texas  leading the way with at least 598 and 439 data centers, respectively.

Other states where many data centers are being built include California, Illinois, and Arizona.

Data center debate

Data centers can provide economic and financial benefits to a community, such as increased tax revenue, temporary construction employment, and the possibility of drawing additional businesses or investment. These projects often require improvements to infrastructure like broadband, electrical systems, and roadways, which may offer long-term advantages for local residents and businesses.

But it's also spurred debate over the data centers bringing increased noise for nearby residents, possible decreased property values, and high resource consumption, including water use and electricity strain.

In Newton County, GA, Meta’s $750 million data center guzzles about 500,000 gallons of water a day, roughly 10% of the county’s entire supply, the New York Times reports.

That’s left some residents living with taps that spit out brown sediment.

"As utilities race to meet AI-driven energy demand, infrastructure costs are rising and those costs are passed [on] to everyday ratepayers," Aaron Wright, CEO of Solomon Group and Solomon e3, a climate tech company focused on equitable energy solutions for underserved communities, tells Realtor.com.

The state that delivers the most electricity to data centers, Virginia, saw a 3.1% increase in electricity prices from May 2024 to May 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The other four states that deliver the most electricity to data centers are Texas, with electricity rates up 4.4%; California, up 1.9%; Illinois, up 12.2%; and Oregon, up 5.5%.

Tech firms vow to cover power costs

In March, President Donald Trump unveiled the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.

"Under this new agreement, Big Tech companies are committing to fully cover the cost of increased electricity production required for AI data centers—and that would mean prices for American communities will not go up, but in many cases, will actually come down," said Trump. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI all signed the pledge, vowing to secure dedicated new energy generation to meet the needs of their facilities—and to pay for that capacity regardless of whether their data centers fully consume it.

They also committed to covering the costs of any new transmission lines, substations, and grid upgrades needed to connect their operations, with the White House noting that these expenses will not be passed on to regular households.

The agreement additionally requires companies to work out separate rate structures with utilities and state regulators, protecting typical customers from price increases driven by large industrial users.

In return, the companies are expected to coordinate with grid operators and make their backup power resources available during periods of shortage, using on-site generation to support grid stability in emergencies and reduce the likelihood of blackouts.