Data centers have become a hotly contested topic across the country, even affecting the way people are voting in the 2026 midterms. AI companies are pumping in billions of dollars to secure land and resources for these storage and compute factories to power their models.
The City of San Diego unanimously voted Tuesday to pause new applications for such centers. Sponsored by Mayor Todd Gloria, the ordinance places a 45-day ban on data center applications and will give the city time to draw up a plan for how data centers can be built.
Already, an investment company is pitching to build a 400-megawatt data center at the site of the Naval Information Warfare Systems (NAVWAR) Command in Old Town. Communities across the country, including Black communities, are pushing back against data centers, citing their energy and water use, rising utility bills, noise, pollution and a lack of transparency from local officials.
The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint gauged the thoughts of some Black residents about data centers. While some say the centers are detrimental to the environment and cause their electricity bills to rise, others say they are not that bad.
An interviewee, who described himself as Mr. San Diego, and who’s a cyber security engineer, said he supports the city’s push to halt new data center developments.
“Data centers [bring] severe damage to our earth,” he said. “[They] are boosting our electrical frequencies and making our bills higher.”
“Mr. San Diego” said artificial intelligence companies don’t need to build more data centers in the city because enough development already exists. “I support them halting it for sure.”
Patrick Kipootich says data centers are here to stay. “I see [data centers] as an evolution in technology,” Kipootich said. “We are moving into the world of AI and AI is driven primarily by data centers. I think data centers will be here as part of our lives.”
Kipooctich said data centers can work in San Diego as long as they are sited so they don’t get in the way of housing development, given the city’s housing shortage. “We can still build homes and accommodate businesses here, including data centers.”
George Gross, who lives with his daughter in a downtown high-rise apartment that rents for $5,000 a month, said he doesn’t know much about data centers. He said only that someone told him they are the reason his electric bills are rising. “I just pay the bills when it comes to the time,” he said. “Cos if you don’t pay, they’re gonna cut you off.”
Gross and his daughter plan to leave the high-rise apartment due to rising costs.
Tayvone Ramos, who was walking his dog at the Embarcadero Marina Park when Voice & Viewpoint approached him for an interview said he only knows of data centers as data collectors. “AI data centers [collect data] on how much we are using it, whether it’s constructive [or not],” he said.
Ramos supports data center construction because, he said, the facilities allow people to “collect data on anything” and use it to plan ahead and make adjustments. “I think it’s a good idea to put data centers in San Diego,” he said.
The City of San Diego can extend the 45-day suspension of new data center applications for at least 10 months. But the fact that NAVWAR land is owned by the federal government, it will need congressional lobbying to prevent its development into a data center.
