Written by Iliana Martinez, Staff Reporter
The first neighborhoods I noticed in Roanoke City to put up NO DATA CENTER signs were the suburbs around the Hidden Valley Country Club. I’d see them and smile to myself, happy to see some people sharing similar sentiments as myself. Then, on May 13, 2026, there was a rally against the Google Data Center proposed in Botetourt (Project Raspberry) before the Botetourt County public hearing. The very next day as I was driving around downtown Roanoke, the NO DATA CENTER signs were standing tall in yards, plastered on utility poles, and hung in the windows of local businesses.
Over the summer, anti-data center rhetoric gained more ground. More citizens are participating in open forums, local government meetings, and demonstrations against the Botetourt project. The group known as the Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance has worked hard to bring people together around this issue.
I’ve been lucky enough to talk to people at local events who are spearheading these community efforts, such as the Sierra Club Chapter, SWVADCTA, and Roanoke Indivisible. People are interested in this topic and what they can do to fight against these back-door agreements. It’s also not just the local community. Roanoke isn’t the only city where collective action is increasing. Recent polling is showing that more Americans are against the construction of AI data centers, with rising concerns of energy, water, land consumption, and sequential public health issues (Meyer, 2026). Furthermore, these new coalitions of neighbors against these projects have differing political views. In a time of great polarization, coming together regardless of political backgrounds is both astounding and inspiring.
To embrace both sides of the AI argument, I believe we’ve landed on the only good thing about AI Data Centers: its ability to break down the social walls and bring us together against a common threat.
