Mayor Freddie to Use Eminent Doman to Stop the Data Center

by Rod Williams, June 29, 2026- This is an outrage. Government should not use eminent domain to take someone's property just because public opinion does not support what the owner wants to do with their property. I would bet that the owner will sue and win, unless the city so overpays for the property that the owner is happy to take the money and build elsewhere. Either way this will cost the city dearly.

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Opposition to Data Centers is Being Driven More by Fear and Uncertainty than Facts

by Rod Williams, June 29, 2026 - I am certainly not an expert on data centers, and if I were presented with evidence that they were dangerous or detrimental to people's health in some way, I could favor more regulation. However, it appears to me that opposition to data centers is being driven by fear more than facts.  That is what Clint Brewer argued recently on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. 

If you are one who follows local news and politics in Nashville, you probably know Clint Brewer. He has worked as a journalist with several Nashville publications over the years and has served in government. He is now in public relations, so he very well may have a teck company as a client. That being said, that does not negate the essence of his argument. I am posting excerpts from an article in the Nashville Star where Clint makes his case. 

It seems to me that a lot of people fear AI. Maybe robots will take over. Maybe AI will put most people out of a job. This fear of technological change, it seems, leads to opposition to data centers. 

There is a large data center being proposed near the Nashville Zoo that has generated a lot of opposition. One argument I hear made in opposition to that data center is that data centers are noisy and emit a high hum. I would like to know just how bad that is. Many people live near interstates or busy roads, as do I. Others live in neighborhoods with the airport flight path over their house. People still buy homes near interstates and beneath the airport flight path. They get used to the noise. The proposed data center site near the Nashville Zoo is appropriately zoned for this use. It is not as if the data center was seeking a rezoning and trying to put the data center in a residential neighborhood. I would need to be persuaded that the noise is a danger to the mental health or hearing of residents near the center before I would be persuaded that this is a reason to stop the development. Is the data center more of a nuisance than what could otherwise be built on this commercially zoned property?

Another argument one hears in opposition to data centers is that data centers use a lot of water and electricity. Having served on the Planning Committee of the Council and having otherwise observed zoning battles for years, opponents of a new development always fall back on the argument that infrastructure does not support the new development. Sometimes it is the capacity of the local school, or the water system, or the wastewater system, or the roads. I am never persuaded by these arguments. A utility, a school system, or a city does not build excess capacity and just wait for it to be used. Demand for the schools, roads, or utilities bumps up against existing supply, and then new capacity is created, and this repeats over and over as long as there is new demand. 

I could be persuaded that data centers are bad for certain places, but I am not persuaded yet. I assume if the land is zoned to allow a data center, then a data center should be allowed. For those who think a data center should not be permitted anywhere ever, please turn in your cell phone and get off the computer. 

Here is the article. 

Brewer: Data Centers Are ‘Non-Negotiable’ for America’s AI Race

by Kaitlin Housler, Nashville Star, June 29, 2026 - ...   Brewer acknowledged that resistance stems from multiple concerns, including apprehension about AI and preserving rural communities.

“It’s a complicated mix of fear of AI taking people’s jobs, coupled with… and rightfully… people in rural areas wanting to keep them rural,” he said. “If you look at where data centers go, disproportionately they go to rural areas.”

... Brewer noted how many communities have responded by imposing restrictions before fully evaluating the industry’s long-term benefits.

“I think there are many states and counties and communities reflexively putting a moratorium on them,” Brewer said. “I think it’s bad for the country overall. We desperately need data centers.”

He argued that data centers are essential to the nation’s technological future and its competition with China.

... Brewer also rejected the notion that data centers fail to generate lasting employment.

“Data centers do create jobs not just in the construction phase, but there will be a long-term legacy sector for maintaining them, servicing them. It is not a jobless endeavor,” he said.

... “I think the utility companies across the South have done a terrific job ramping up production to accommodate data centers,” Brewer said.

Brewer pointed to neighboring states as examples of governments embracing artificial intelligence and related infrastructure.

“Mississippi’s all in… Arkansas,” he said. “They’re incorporating them into their power grid plan. They’re incorporating artificial intelligence into making state government more efficient. There’s some real forward-looking things happening in some parts of the South.”

... the issue has created an unusual political coalition.

“It’s one of those weird places politically where, if you think of politics as traditionally a spectrum with a right on the one end, left on the other end, this is one of those issues where the right and the left come in the back door behind the spectrum and get together,” Brewer said.

According to Brewer, that alliance combines “pro-rural populism coupled with progressive anti-Americanism and anti-growth and anti-industrialization.” (read it all)

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