But a datacenter doesn’t employ that many people, compared to mines. To develop a town you need to give a bunch of people a job, build small commerces, invest in the local infrastructure, so a real local economy can sustain itself. There is none of that with datacenters
replyIf it actually helped the economies flourish, then that would be interesting. NIMBY is in some part a reaction to the belief (likely true) that there would be neither jobs nor tax money from a data center in their community backyard--it's all downside with no upside.
replyThe Loudoun county has Datacenters that pay enough in taxes equalling the salary of 30k residents earning $40k dollars each (in a county of ~400k population).
replyThis is a shockingly high upside relative to any other industry, like Car or Steel industry which pollute way more.
These taxes can be used to create better infra and have other things going on. Better schools and maybe even research facilities.
But I do think the opposition is largely ideological in nature so these arguments don't matter at the end.
Taxes have relatively little to do with how good schools are, that is dominated by the quality of the students who live close enough to attend the schools.
replyDo you see coal mining towns as a model to pursue?
replyYes they contributed enormous growth without which USA could not have been a dominant power. There are better alternatives now however.
reply