alt Hacker News> The ratio of jobs and taxes to local resources tied up has to be one of the worst possible trade-offs of any industrial use that you can envision
Why? There aren't much "local resources tied up" since it's land that isn't that valuable for the most part. DCs, once built, don't emit fumes or loud noises, or make traffic worse like other industrial land use might. They just sit there quietly and generate tax revenue for the locality.
Sure, there aren't many ongoing jobs at an operating DC. But I can't see why it's one of the worst possible industrial uses, from the point of view of the residents around one.
> data centers are proving to be profoundly unpopular
From what I can tell, this is just from a combination of AI being unpopular plus opportunistic fearmongering on the part of politicians.
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What you're saying is just factually incorrect. Data centers absolutely are loud and they're disruptive.
They're not good for the environment. They consume large quantities of water, typically, and huge, absolutely staggering amounts of energy, which typically has the effect of raising rates for everybody else by driving up demand and causing capital infrastructure needs that are financed by everybody, not just the data center.
There is absolutely widespread dislike for data center construction in basically every region spanning almost every political axis in the United States right now.
There's polling on it. It's abysmal. The assumption that all these people are stupid sheep probably won't be a productive way to approach this public policy question.
The bigger thing here is just the idea that the alternatives are "Boeing assembly plant" or "data center". Like: if you have the option of getting the Boeing plant, get the Boeing plant! Racine County does not have that option. Meanwhile, the happy sounding businesses there --- like the duck farm --- are actually major polluters, and more problematic for the region than a data center.
The people opposing data centers oppose them everywhere, including in the middle of the desert in Utah, which really gives away the game.