"AI gains are diffuse, while the perceived pain associated with living near a datacenter is concentrated." [diffuse]
This sentence directly names the structural asymmetry — diffuse benefits vs. concentrated costs — that the article argues is the real driver of community opposition, independent of any foreign influence.
Reasoning from this article
The article uses the DeForest/Stargate examples to illustrate a general pattern: infrastructure whose benefits are national or global but whose costs are hyper-local will systematically generate NIMBY resistance. This is the same dynamic seen with power lines, pipelines, and cell towers, now applying to AI compute. The article's proposed fixes (revenue sharing, community investment) are essentially Pigouvian transfers to internalize externalities, confirming the structural nature of the problem.