living near – Across the U.S., residents near new data centers are describing a familiar grind of early-morning construction, generator noise and fumes, changing views, and rising concerns about how projects are approved and communicated—while utilities and developers say t
At 2:30 in the morning, Charcie Chavis says she can already hear the work starting again.
In her backyard in Conover, North Carolina, the view is no longer farmland. The land behind her home has been cleared for a Microsoft data center development that now wraps around her neighborhood “like a U.” Chavis said crews have begun construction before dawn. poured concrete late into the night. and filled the air with red dust. “You work all day. and you come home. and you can’t even get three hours of peace and quiet. ” she told Newsweek. “At 2:30 in the morning, they’re gonna be out here.”.
For Chavis, it isn’t just the noise—it’s the sense that the familiar rhythms of home have been swallowed by a project that’s still taking shape.
In Lowell, Massachusetts, Jake Fortes says the disruption didn’t end after construction stopped. He described a facility built near his home over the past decade that now sits about 84 feet from his property. producing what he calls constant mechanical noise and regular emissions from backup generators. The facility is operated by Boston-based Markley Group.
Fortes said the cooling systems and infrastructure run day and night, creating a sound that rises and falls unpredictably. “It’s like just putting a jet engine next to you in bed. ” Fortes told Newsweek. describing how surges in noise can wake him during the night. He said the impact extends beyond sound: backup diesel generators are tested regularly. sometimes without warning. sending fumes toward nearby homes and forcing residents to quickly shut windows.
Markley Group pushed back on those accounts. The company told Newsweek that its backup generators are used only during outages or limited weekly testing periods and operate within state regulatory limits. Markley said testing in Lowell typically lasts about five minutes and that the systems produce around 44 decibels of sound—“quieter than a quiet conversation. ” according to federal reference levels. The company said it has installed sound-mitigating walls. equipment attenuation measures. and hundreds of trees to reduce noise. and it said the facility operates “well below” allowable maintenance hours.
Markley also disputed the broader claim that the site made home life less desirable. Fortes said the presence of the facility has made it harder to leave because he believes few buyers would want a home so close to it. “Nobody’s going to want this,” he said.
Markley said it has invested more than $650 million in the Lowell site since 2015. employing around 100 full-time staff and supporting additional union jobs. The company said it has provided infrastructure used by hospitals, public safety agencies and regional businesses. It added that the site has long been used for industrial purposes and was redeveloped from a vacant property.
While residents in different states describe different details, they are also describing the same shift: data centers moving closer to homes—and asking communities to absorb the cost of that proximity.
Back in North Carolina, Chavis said the Microsoft project represents more than disruption. “You’re going to look out my backyard. ” she said. “past my gazebo and my water fountain… and it’s just going to be a big concrete wall.” Right now. the impact is immediate. Chavis said “everything that we own outside” and “our entire house” is covered in red dirt. and that if the wind picks up. it looks like the family “live[s] in the desert.”.
A Microsoft spokesperson told Newsweek the company is “committed to being a good neighbor in the communities where we build. own and operate our datacenters. ” adding it is aware of concerns raised in Conover and has been working with contractors to “mitigate the issues and minimize construction impacts on the local community.”.
In Northern Virginia, the anxiety is less about one construction site and more about what comes after.
Mindy Dipenbrock said the pace of change in the Braemar community has felt startling. She and her husband moved there as newlyweds. drawn by trails. open space. and what she described as a quieter environment to raise children. “We picked the location on our street because it’s directly across from a nature trail,” she told Newsweek. She said residents were told development nearby by Dominion Energy would be limited.
Now, she said, the landscape has turned into something else. “Our community looks like a dystopian nightmare,” she said. “Where there used to be forest, now there are these monstrous buildings.”
Dipenbrock said data centers themselves are only part of what’s changing. The infrastructure that follows—power lines, substations and transmission corridors—is increasingly being planned closer to residential areas. She pointed to what she described as a lack of transparency and said it contributed to an expanding uncertainty about what future development could mean.
“The lack of transparency was so infuriating,” Dipenbrock said. “My view is beautiful right now,” she added, “like waiting for a nightmare to begin.”
Dominion Energy did not respond to an interview request in the story, but Newsweek reached out to Dominion Energy via email for comment.
Prince William County told Newsweek its land use review process is “designed to be transparent. data-driven and accessible to the public. ” with community input considered alongside technical analysis and planning policies. The county said residents can track proposals through online tools and participate in public hearings. written submissions and outreach processes before decisions are made.
April Padilla lives in the same region as Dipenbrock. though she said she does not live directly next to a data center. Instead, she described being near existing utility lines that she believes are being upgraded to support new development. Some days, she said, the existing infrastructure is already noticeable from her home.
“If you’re sitting out on your back deck trying to eat your meal or just hang out, you can hear it,” Padilla said, describing a buzzing sound from the lines. “I anticipate that that’s only going to get worse.”
The scale of the industry helps explain why residents say they feel they are bracing for something bigger than what they can see.
U.S. data centers consumed around 176 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023—about 4.4 percent of the country’s total power use—with demand projected to rise sharply as AI expands. By 2028, that share could climb to as much as 12 percent of national electricity consumption, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The global data center market is forecast to reach $573 billion in 2026. rising to more than $739 billion by the end of the decade. as demand surges for artificial intelligence. cloud computing and digital services. The U.S., already home to thousands of facilities, is expected to remain the world’s largest market.
That growth has a major economic footprint. A 2025 analysis by the Data Center Coalition (DCC). a trade association and lobbying group representing data center owners. found that the U.S. data center sector contributed nearly $727 billion to GDP in 2023. supporting millions of jobs across the economy when indirect effects are included. Employment directly tied to data centers has also grown rapidly. rising from around 306. 000 workers in 2016 to more than 500. 000 in 2023. according to U.S. Census data.
At the same time, residents often experience the work in a more concentrated way than job statistics suggest. The number of permanent jobs at individual sites is often relatively small. Once built. large data centers can operate with as few as several dozen on-site staff. with most employment concentrated in the construction phase. The story noted that a $10 billion facility may support thousands of construction roles but only hundreds—or fewer—long-term jobs once operational.
For Padilla, the concerns are cumulative. “It’s just the idea of knowing that more of these are coming,” she said.
Fortes said he believes the story facing his neighborhood will spread. “This story will be repeated tons of times over,” he said.
data centers Microsoft data center noise generator emissions construction dust Conover North Carolina Lowell Massachusetts Markley Group Dominion Energy Prince William County Northern Virginia electricity demand artificial intelligence U.S. power use