alt Hacker NewsUSA appears to have weird inversion from how things could be done, so obvious logical benefits of building datacenters are flipped into negatives - through tax breaks, incoherent infrastructure spending (industrial clients should be effectively subsidizing the infrastructure!) on top of electrical grid that might benefit from being taken behind the barn.
Once you get rid of "USA is a specially broken place", you're truly left only with noise pollution, which is workable to deal with and its costs can in fact be taken by developer. Hell, existing industrial zones or ex-factory land is normally preferred elsewhere.
Replies
> USA appears to have weird inversion from how things could be done
The US has a corruption problem, which is not exceptional - I don't know what place you're comparing the US to that doesn't give the rich money and the right of way where and when they want.
People say it's a "race to the bottom" without realizing what that implies. It implies that data centers will simply get deals in localities that will not benefit from data centers if other places demand that they at least pay for themselves. Why would that happen? It happens because it will personally benefit the people who have been charged with making the decision.
> Once you get rid of "USA is a specially broken place"
Again, compared to who? You think they'll have an easier time in Europe? You think if they want to build them in Peru that the residents will benefit?
I agree that datacenters should be treated like industrial sites. Most people wouldn't want a micro oil refinery or machining factory put up 300 meters from their house. Regulate datacenters like we would a factory. Require them to account for their inputs and their waste outputs, and prohibit them if noise levels are too high or if a concentration of them affects the local climate through heat waste.
"USA is a specially broken place"
It really is a bizarre place to live... it's both the richest nation in the world, but also uniquely broken in many really sad and confusing ways.
Pretty sure unlimited campaign spending (much of it without attribution via dark money) is a major contributor. While not legally bribery, it sure does look like a duck. Not to mention the actual bribery (747s and weddings for Trump being the most obvious examples).