Chandler, Arizona —

Andy and Carrie Hoefer knew little about data centers until a notice arrived informing them that one might be built across the street from their condominium complex.

Only then did they make a startling discovery: Ten data centers already operate in the area around their home.

“Do we really need 11?” Andy Hoefer asked.

The city of Chandler has spent years wrestling with that question, just as communities around the country debate the economic and environmental trade-offs of these hulking, resource-intensive warehouses of servers and other IT equipment that power everything from streaming services to online banking

In battleground Arizona and beyond, the politics of data centers are unsettled, not falling neatly along partisan lines. And President Donald Trump ha

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