Abundance

Why Americans Hate Data Centers

Plain English with Derek Thompson, 11 August 2026. The book comes up at 40 min 29 sec in.

Derek Thompson, the podcast's host and co-author of Abundance, invokes the book while distinguishing data center opposition from ordinary NIMBYism. He notes that houses are built for people whereas data centers are 'basically houses for computer chips,' then ties this to a theme the book addresses: the shift from America's mid-twentieth-century growth machine to an anti-growth machine of extended permitting and zoning aversion that has characterized the country over the past fifty years.

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