Because cities felt the devastating effects when industrial factories staffed with good union jobs went away, and yearn for their carbon copy replacement. These factories had ripple regional advantage effects beyond the factory workers. Armies of teamsters have to drive in and out of town to deliver inputs and outputs for industrial factories, and they all need to eat. Corporate and R&D types used to need to spend more time at the industrial factory. Put a factory in a region and a corporate office often follows. Put enough of them in the same region and you start to get an innovation hub as they all hang out and see each other at third spaces. Universities and innovation hubs mutually benefit and expand when distance matters.

So the industrial factory tax break model often did pay off. Data centers are selling the same story: give us tax breaks for big expensive capital investment and regional prosperity is yours. They often lie about even the direct number of jobs. But the implied regional advantage is definitely dead when it is all cloud and zoom, rather than widgets and happy hours.