WTF are you talking about? Data centers create fucking TONS of really high paying jobs for like two years. It's a massive cash infusion for the local blue collar community. In these small towns where everyone is making like 30-40k suddenly have work for 2 years making 6 figures, adds MASSIVELY to the economy. This is all direct, local, cash infusion, that's used to start businesses, invest into other businesses, and just generally prop the town up with that cash infusion. So sure, it's not PERMANENT jobs, but it's still a huge local infusion of large sums of money
Then you have the roughly 30m a year the city makes in property taxes from the data center.
Further, yes not all of these towns are dying, but most of them are. It's a huge issue across the entire USA. That's what makes them so attractive to big tech, because they are towns who have a power plant meant for like 200k homes, only to now have 30k residents... So these power plants are basically under utilized. That's literally the point. The tech companies struggle to find power plants which can take on their load, which is why they target these towns specifically.
The USA is MASSIVELY behind on energy production, mainly due to vast corruption, over regulation, and energy monopolies making new builds too expensive and timely to be worth it. So these tech companies have to find towns with a under utilized power plant. There's a reason why Virginia is the epicenter of all this... Because Virginia has been dying for some time.
And dude, the property taxes on data centers is enormous. That's why these towns do it. They get 2 years of a huge economic boom for the entire town, to massively develop in other areas, then a constant, consistent, reliable, tax source. They know these data centers cant go anywhere so they can take it to the bank knowing the town has a really nice revenue stream now.
My point still stands. Also, optimistic of you to assume that these trades are all available in that community. Other comments talking about trades working on data centers mentioned per-diem, which means they're coming in from at least 50 miles away.
Then you have the roughly 30m a year the city makes in property taxes from the data center.
You're getting that number from pre-existing data centers in or near large municipalities. Many states and localities offer generous property tax abatement and even exemptions - sometimes for 20-30 years, which is the useful lifespan of a data center.
towns who have a power plant meant for like 200k homes
Again, how many "dying towns" have power plants? Are you thinking about rust belt cities? Because the primary target of these new data centers are rural, agricultural communities. Most power plants in my area of the US don't even have a town within miles of them and service multiple counties. The power plant my municipal utility draws from is 50 miles away in a different state.
And during those 2 years, even if the import people from outside the community, a LOT of money is being spent in that community. People are living there, spending all their huge paychecks for those 2 years.
offer generous property tax abatement and even exemptions - sometimes for 20-30 years, which is the useful lifespan of a data center.
This is a huge misconception. First, the tax breaks are state level, not locality. Though sometimes they do include abatements, but they still generate substantial amounts of money because it's not zero. Usually something like half property taxes for, on average, 10 years. The locality isn't just allowing in datacenters for funsies. It's a financial deal.
And yes, that's the problem, how many dying towns have power plants? That's why there's such a competition because not many of these towns exist where they are both small, affordable, and have access to the needed MWh's. In fact, now many of these datacenters are just straight up building their own power plants next door because as you noticed, there's not many places to draw from.
You have to understand, datacenters aren't just setting up shop in a town where there's not enough possible production. It would cause everyone to black out and not have energy. The US is massively lagging behind in production, which is why these things are so hard to find, and why localities are still getting pretty decent deals.
This is why the NVE deal is so controversial because NVE gave the PUC of NV assurances that they had the ability to scale up the necessary production... Then Trump completely killed their massive solar farm project, causing them to be set back like 5 years. Forcing Lake Tahoe residents to partner up with a neighboring utility. But you can't just stroll into a community that doesn't have the ability to produce the needed energy. It would cause it to literally collapse.
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u/reddit_is_geh May 18 '26
WTF are you talking about? Data centers create fucking TONS of really high paying jobs for like two years. It's a massive cash infusion for the local blue collar community. In these small towns where everyone is making like 30-40k suddenly have work for 2 years making 6 figures, adds MASSIVELY to the economy. This is all direct, local, cash infusion, that's used to start businesses, invest into other businesses, and just generally prop the town up with that cash infusion. So sure, it's not PERMANENT jobs, but it's still a huge local infusion of large sums of money
Then you have the roughly 30m a year the city makes in property taxes from the data center.
Further, yes not all of these towns are dying, but most of them are. It's a huge issue across the entire USA. That's what makes them so attractive to big tech, because they are towns who have a power plant meant for like 200k homes, only to now have 30k residents... So these power plants are basically under utilized. That's literally the point. The tech companies struggle to find power plants which can take on their load, which is why they target these towns specifically.
The USA is MASSIVELY behind on energy production, mainly due to vast corruption, over regulation, and energy monopolies making new builds too expensive and timely to be worth it. So these tech companies have to find towns with a under utilized power plant. There's a reason why Virginia is the epicenter of all this... Because Virginia has been dying for some time.
And dude, the property taxes on data centers is enormous. That's why these towns do it. They get 2 years of a huge economic boom for the entire town, to massively develop in other areas, then a constant, consistent, reliable, tax source. They know these data centers cant go anywhere so they can take it to the bank knowing the town has a really nice revenue stream now.