How Data Center Developers Can Win Back Rural America

Data centers are loathed. Their polling has collapsed, going from solidly positive territory just a few years ago to deep in the negatives. This, in turn, is affecting their political situation, as politicians around the country are realizing that it makes for good politics to oppose further construction. Maine’s legislature recently passed a bill banning new construction, which was blocked only by a veto from the outgoing establishment-friendly governor. The governor of Illinois just unilaterally put a hold on data center subsidies. Town council members are losing their seats due to data center approvals, and voters in an Oklahoma City suburb sought to recall their mayor and vice mayor over a recent approval (the vice mayor quit before the recall’s inevitable success).

The tech companies building data centers have thus far responded similarly to Don Draper’s famous outburst from Mad Men: “That’s what the money is for!” Loudoun County, Virginia, gets almost half of its tax revenues from data centers. But that has not helped their polling: instead, Virginia Democrats—who have a trifecta in Richmond—have been unable to pass a budget amid debates over how much to tax data centers.

 Ads in the same state are not helping either; in Virginia and elsewhere, advertisements lambast anti-data center politicians as job killers. But no one looks at the large gray buildings, seemingly devoid of life, and sees jobs. If there are jobs, the tech companies’ image is so poor that most voters likely believe they will be filled by H-1B visa holders.

Read more at The National Interest.