Why early community planning deserves a place in the conversation about data centers

Planning a data center raises questions beyond the facility itself. Where workers live, how nearby services develop, and who pays for supporting infrastructure deserve attention while a project is still taking shape. For communities considering development, those decisions could influence what a major investment contributes to everyday life.

The scale of projected growth gives those questions urgency. The International Energy Agency estimates that global electricity consumption by data centers could roughly double from 485 terawatt-hours in 2025 to 950 terawatt-hours in 2030. Its outlook also acknowledges uncertainty, including financing conditions and infrastructure bottlenecks. Growth creates a planning challenge, but individual projects and their wider benefits remain contingent.

For Danica Bilicich-Mason, president of the board of directors at the California Infrastructure Delivery Coalition (CALINFRA), that challenge warrants a broader conversation about community development. The coalition identifies education, collaboration, and advocacy around infrastructure delivery as its core work. Mason’s perspective centers on considering housing and everyday services alongside proposed data centers, particularly in remote locations.

“Government agencies and data center developers need to coordinate early and plan these projects together,” she says.

Her thinking draws partly on her experience working around remote infrastructure projects, including hydroelectric facilities. Mason points to the difficulties of working in places where accommodation exists primarily to support a job site. In her view, planning should also consider whether people can maintain family life and access the services they would need to settle in an area.

She sees lessons in the communities that developed around oil, mining, railroads, and hydroelectric projects. Her interest lies in examining how housing, commerce, and public services emerged around those activities. For future developments, she believes those needs deserve consideration earlier, rather than being left entirely to gradual growth.

That historical comparison is a starting point for her proposal. It does not establish that a data center would support the same population or commercial activity as another industry. Any surrounding development would need a credible basis in local demand, employment prospects, and infrastructure capacity. The opportunity is therefore one to evaluate, with the scale of housing and services matched to evidence.

Mason’s proposed approach begins with cooperation between the developer and the relevant government entity. She envisions a master plan that considers streets, housing, schools, emergency services, and access to healthcare. In her assessment, identifying those needs together could give subsequent development a clearer direction and help participants understand how individual projects might fit into a wider community.

She also places importance on the practical conditions that make a place livable. Housing alone would leave questions about groceries, other shops, and services unresolved. Mason believes considering those elements together could make remote development more compatible with family life and create opportunities for work beyond the data center itself, where demand supports them.

The financial side of that proposal requires similar care. Mason sees potential opportunities for interested investors to participate in surrounding development, including selling land to other developers or building commercial properties for sale or lease. She presents these as possibilities associated with a coordinated plan.

Those possibilities should be assessed separately from assumptions about the data center’s performance. Housing and commercial space would still need buyers or tenants, while public services would require workable funding. A broader development proposal would therefore need to explain its costs, likely demand, and responsibilities before potential benefits could be treated as dependable.

For Mason, the value of early coordination is that it allows these conversations to happen while choices remain open. She believes developers and public agencies should consider how an infrastructure project might connect with the needs of people who could live and work nearby. Her proposal gives community planning a place within the initial discussion about development.

The next step, in her view, is a shared master plan shaped by the developer and the government entity considering the project. That approach would bring housing, services, and commercial possibilities into the same conversation, with each element assessed on its merits. The aim is to consider the conditions for a functioning community before relying on one to emerge.