> we demonstrate that data centers are an overwhelmingly urban phenomenon, with 97.5% of facilities situated in metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas
“Metropolitan area” is doing a lot of work. Every metropolitan area I’ve lived or worked in has had industrial areas, too. Those industrial areas have buildings that use a lot of electricity, water, or natural gas and produce a lot of noise.
This isn’t some unusual outcome. It’s like one of those maps that purports to show one thing but really just shows population density.
Most data centres in Australia (even the announced biggest one in the Southern Hemisphere) are close to a water processing plant in an industrial zone in Sydney. The same plant that supplies 85% of Sydney with drinking water. At least there's an upgrade.
If the data center is built despite multiple demands to desist, then it may not be a surprise per se, but it can still be an unaccounted stress on local resources.
94% of the US population lives in a metropolitan or micropolitan area. There are ‘micropolitan’ areas in my state that’d I would colloquially consider rural, and there are large areas of the metropolitan area I live in that I would consider rural.
