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Comment by goatlover | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to people having a say in what gets built in their neighborhoods.

Yes this is exactly what NIMBYs who want to prevent new housing from existing say. And preventing people in a community from having a day in what gets built in their neighborhoods is precislely what state level YIMBY laws in California are intended to do.

Yeah honestly YIMBYs should just leave the state, I don't want them in my backyard.

I think NIMBY's are broadly correct, there is already too much buildings. They should lead by example and start by demolishing their own homes.

If you cannot see the fundamental difference between building datacenters that suck power, provide no local jobs, are a nuisance, and can be located almost anywhere and housing for people I simply don’t know what to tell you.

Your point is that the arguments are topologically similar but you are ignoring the impacts.

The impacts of data centers on people living nearby are basically nothing, and pretty much all anti-data-center-sentiment is driven by misinformed or willfully-delusional people. Even the idea that it's a problem that data centers "provide no local jobs" is crazy - there are all sorts of built structures that provide no local jobs because they simply have nothing to do with a business that hires employees, the idea that a data center doing much the same thing justifies making it illegal to build is crazy.

I think there's a better case that building additional housing causes an impact on people nearby than there is that data centers do - because the people who would live in that housing are a type of impact on the people who already live nearby - and I'm still extremely unsympathetic to NIMBYs because NIMBYism is the main reason my own housing costs are so high. Data center opposition is even less justified than housing opposition.

If data centres were forced to contribute what was required to build the utility infrastructure required to support them, that might be true. For example, electricity costs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/27/electrici...

Datacentres are generally built where poor people live. If you are on minimum wage and suddenly someone increases your electricity bill by $300 because of data centres, on top of all the other increases tied to things like energy insecurity... I can understand why people would consider that an impact.

Data centers are very noisy, would you live next to one?

Why should by default anyone have a say in what legal activity someone does in their own private property? If they don't like it, it is on them to prove some damages.

>Why should by default anyone have a say in what legal activity someone does in their own private property? If they don't like it, it is on them to prove some damages.

I can legally operate a slaughterhouse. How about I buy the plots on both sides of your house and start killing, gutting and cleaning cows, pigs, sheep and other animals?

Any waste can be removed a couple times a week.

I'd expect that you'd object to that perfectly reasonable business plan, yes?

What's that? There are laws (usually zoning) about who (If anyone) can run a slaughterhouse on your street?

Whatever do you mean?

Who are you to tell me what I can do on my private property?

Are you some kind of communist?

I don't mind that. Run a slaughterhouse around my house if you want. I live in a low regulation place regarding mixing residential/business and in fact there is already a slaughterhouse next to me.

Same but student housing. I'll build an apartment complex so that students can have a place to live.

I think in a residential area that would be more profitable than a slaughterhouse. Slaughterhouses don't really pencil out in busy neighborhoods.

We are all NIMBY when we get the results we want.

We hate NIMBYs when others get what they want.

That’s life I guess.

No taxation without representation. Controversial in 2026!

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