Manchester wants a data center ban. I get it. But then where?

Manchester Township Council usually draws 30 or 40 people on a normal night. This week it drew an overflow crowd, spilling into the hallway, after word spread on social media that a developer might be eyeing a data center next to an age-restricted community bordering the Pinelands. There was nothing about data centers on the actual meeting agenda. Didn't matter. People showed up anyway, and the message was blunt: just ban it.

I've written about this exact pattern all summer, Diamond Beach, Andover Township, Hillsborough, and now Manchester makes another entry in a growing list of New Jersey towns where residents decided showing up before a decision gets made beats showing up after.

What's actually happening in Manchester

Township officials say according to a Patch report, that there's no formal data center application on the table. But Business Administrator Carl Block confirmed a developer who already has approvals for a warehouse complex on Block 62 is evaluating whether part of that project could instead become a data center. Residents aren't waiting to find out. The Pinelands Alliance and Save Barnegat Bay pushed the turnout through social media, and speakers at the meeting raised real, specific concerns: a town that already faces yearly water restrictions, a power grid that's seen multiple outages this year during high heat, and land inside the Pinelands that happens to be the only lots in Manchester currently zoned for a data center. More than 40 New Jersey municipalities have already passed outright bans. One Manchester resident told the council plainly: you have the power to ban it outright, just like they did.

SEE ALSO: NJ civic engagement: Hillsborough joins a growing pattern 

My own conflict here, and I don't think I'm alone in it

I wrote a few months back about warehouses and Amazon boxes, and I'll say the same thing here that I said then, just don't touch my Pine Barrens. I mean that completely. But I also can't pretend I don't rely on the very thing these data centers exist to power. I use AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT for actual work tasks most days now, and for everything from drafting an article to figuring out why my lawnmower won't start. And it's not just the obvious stuff. AI usage among businesses jumped from 55 percent to 78 percent in just two years, and in retail alone, closer to 9 in 10 companies are now using it somewhere in their operations, recommendations, fraud protection, the logistics that get that smiling-box package to your porch. You feel that convenience every single day, whether you clock it as "AI" or not.

So here's the honest tension. Everybody wants the convenience. Nobody wants the building that makes it possible. If it's not in your backyard, where does it go?

My actual answer: put them where the land is already spoken for

I don't think the answer is "nowhere," because that's not a real answer, it's a wish. My answer is: stop putting these in undeveloped land and Pinelands-adjacent lots, and start putting them in the industrial capacity New Jersey already has sitting half-used. This state has industrial parks in town after town with a handful of buildings on acres of paved, already-zoned, already-disturbed land. Put them there. Line them up along the already-industrial corridor that runs the length of the Turnpike, where the noise, the power draw, and the water use aren't landing next to a Pinelands town's drinking supply.

People fought highways once. They fought airports once. They fought shopping malls going up on farmland once. Every one of those fights delayed something for a while, and none of them stopped it permanently, because the demand underneath the fight never actually went away. I think this is the same shape of argument. You can slow this down, town by town, ban by ban, and towns absolutely should fight for the right location instead of just any location. But if you're using AI, streaming, shopping online, or asking a device a question and expecting an answer in three seconds, the infrastructure behind that has to live somewhere in this state. I'd just rather it live in a half-empty industrial park than in the Pinelands.