No, it's not the same! At least not at the data centers I've seen. Go look at the Aurora CH1 CyrusOne DC and then beam yourself down 88 a bit to the nearest office building and compare. Data centers have parking, but not a lot of it. CHI1 is ringed by a single two-sided line of spots. Every big box retailer is surrounded by an ocean of asphalt larger than CHI1 itself.

It amuses me that you have consistently refused to draw the connection to this 'ocean' of asphalt and the purpose of the building it was designed for and are basically being obtuse.

But you know what is a better neighbour than a data centre or an office or a strip mall? A nice public park and local shops that support the community without you having to drive your car a distance that in any other country would be easily walkable.

Why would anybody want a monolithic megastructure sat next to their house that offers nothing good to the community itself? There is no upside for the locals. No improvement to quality of life.

Feels like you’re cherry picking to make a point, so here’s some cherry picking on the other side https://www.fierce-network.com/data-center/top-10-ugliest-da...

So much dead ugly space, and let’s not look at them at night with enough external lighting to see from space (almost)