The Data Center Anarchists Handbook

The Data Center Anarchist’s Handbook is a public civic resource examining the local, environmental, economic, legal, and democratic questions communities should ask before data centers are approved, subsidized, connected to public infrastructure, or embedded into long-term development plans. The handbook is intended for residents, municipal officials, journalists, public-interest researchers, educators, community groups, landowners, and others seeking plain-language tools for evaluating data center proposals. It addresses issues including electricity demand, water use, noise, land use, public subsidies, grid infrastructure, emergency planning, environmental review, public consultation, foreign ownership, community benefit claims, and long-term public costs. Rather than arguing that all data centers are inherently unacceptable, the handbook argues that large-scale digital infrastructure should not be treated as ordinary industrial development. Data centers can place significant demands on public systems while promising private economic benefits that may be difficult for communities to verify. The purpose of this resource is to help communities ask better questions, identify hidden assumptions, and insist on transparent, enforceable conditions before approvals proceed. This document is released as a free public resource under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence. It may be copied, shared, quoted, adapted, translated, and redistributed, provided appropriate credit is given and adaptations are released under the same licence.