With some suburbanites concerned about data centers proposed for their communities, I have a possible solution: why not create new suburban communities that only contain data centers?

Imagine a suburban municipality full of data centers. It could help serve the needs of the surrounding region. It could draw on its own water and electricity supply (or make its own deals for these resources). It would not have to worry about being located near residences or other land uses where residents feel threatened.

This is not the first time I have thought of this idea. It could work for waste transfer sites. Landfills. Warehouses. Industry. Marijuana dispensaries. Religious congregations (see examples of opposition from my own research here and here)? This could work for the multiple land uses that suburban residents often object to or communities see as threats to their established way of life.

Creating such communities could be difficult. Given that many metropolitan areas are full of development, there might be three primary options to find land for such an endeavor:

1. Locate the new municipality on the fringes of the region. This has the advantages of not changing densely developed land and it is already located further away from residences.
2. Convert an existing suburb into such a place. While the image of American suburbs is often that of wealthy and exclusive communities, industrial suburbs have also been around for a long time. There are already suburbs with fewer residents that might be willing to take on more data centers.
3. Take a bit of land from several existing communities and create this new municipality. This could be hard to do as suburbs are likely to resist losing land. But if the tradeoff is giving up land so that the perceived threat of a data center is not their responsibility, perhaps a conversation can start.

Any of these are unlikely. Not impossible. But suburban leaders and residents have resisted certain land uses for decades. The hope seems to be in each community that if they can successfully keep the land use out, that is success and good luck to other communities in addressing the issue.