Monterey Park Just Made History And Other Cities Are Taking Notes

A small California city just made history in a very big way, and the residents of Monterey Park are celebrating a landmark victory that communities all across the country are now watching very closely. Voters there passed Measure NDC, a permanent citywide ban on data centers, with a stunning 86 percent of the vote, making Monterey Park the first city in the United States to approve a voter-backed permanent data center ban of its kind. The grassroots movement began when plans surfaced to demolish a local office building and replace it with a massive facility that residents said would have tripled the electricity consumption of the entire city of Monterey Park. Neighbors organized, showed up at community meetings, knocked on doors, placed signs in their front yards, and ultimately made their voices heard in one of the most decisive community votes the region has seen in a very long time.

The concerns driving the Monterey Park vote are ones that communities in states all across the country are beginning to share out loud. From rural New Jersey to Northern Virginia to New Mexico, residents are raising serious questions about noise, water consumption, rising electricity bills, and the broader impact these enormous computing facilities can have on the neighborhoods immediately surrounding them. Monterey Park city leaders said they hope their historic vote will serve as a model and an inspiration for other communities navigating this same growing conversation about who gets to decide what is built in their own backyard. In an era when technology moves quickly and big decisions can often feel out of reach for ordinary people, this Southern California city sent a powerful reminder that neighbors working together still have every ability to shape the place they call home.

Source:https://www.commondreams.org/news/monterey-park-data-centers