Rage against the machine: a California community rallied against a datacenter – and won

Organizers in Monterey Park took inspiration from other US cities to fight against the construction of a giant datacenter

When a southern California city council proposed building a giant datacenter the size of four football fields last December, five residents vowed to stop it.

Through a frenetic word-of-mouth campaign, the small group raised awareness about the proposed facility in Monterey Park, a small city east of Los Angeles known affectionately as the country's first suburban Chinatown.