alt Hacker NewsI've mentioned this in other threads, but a well managed data center policy from a functioning municipality can make data centers a boon rather than a nuisance. Loudoun County, Virginia (of MAE-East, AWS US-East-1, and Equinix fame) has navigated it in a way that has led to continually lowered property taxes combined with excellent well funded public services, and less downside than other industrial land uses would have. They also have noise and other regulations that mean that the data centers functionally just act like empty warehouses. They've kept up with grid capacity, so none of them rely on loud, polluting, off grid generators, and electricity and water are not noticeably more expensive than in other regions.
If Norway navigates this policy half as well as they've navigated their oil, this could be beneficial for the common people and help Europe detangle themselves from reliance on US or Chinese tech.
I happened to be looking around at some datacenters on Google Maps in Chantilly, VA and I noticed that their neighbors were: a busy international airport, a quarry, various contractors such as paving and air compressor rental, and a bunch of car dealerships. There is a residential neighborhood nearby, but it's separated from the datacenters by a 6-lane divided highway. That's nice, that makes sense, that's how it's supposed to be.
The problem with datacenters is pretty much entirely the same as the problem with other industries. It's why we have industrial zoning, and yes people who live too close to industrial zones of all kinds tend to suffer ill effects (noise, pollution, ugly).
We don't see towns rushing to plop steel mills right in people's back yards and cut them subsidized electricity deals at everyone else's expense. So why should they do it for data centers? It shouldn't even be a question, none of this data center madness should be happening.
Heck, there are plenty of decommissioned/underutilized industrial zones already. Why aren't we building datacenters on top of old tank farms along industrial waterways? Or along interstate highways which are punishingly unpleasant to live near already?