Obviously the solution is to tax them instead of ban them so they end up dispersing income to the surrounding areas. The entire point though is that they won't get built where they are taxed, and eventually, through regulatory capture or governance capture, they'll get built without having to compensate for their exteralities.

The cynicism of residents is reasonable. They've have to be highly educated to actually understand the implications of what they're doing and how that revenue can be distributed. America's decline lends itself toward small-town corruption, where patronage is more important than communitarianism, due to large and accelerating net worth inequality, and an economy where outcomes are based on inheritance over labor.

This explains the logic behind an outright ban. You don't have to be vigilant about corruption and the principle-agent problem if the thing is just banned.

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order-matters 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>The entire point though is that they won't get built where they are taxed

I dont think this is entirely true. Maybe not the first wave of data centers, but there are a lot of factors that go into the cost calc and its possible that it would still be worth it to build them even if taxed.

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BeetleB 2 hours ago | parent [-]

He's not saying it's economically unfeasible to build where taxed. He's saying they'll simply build elsewhere where they won't be taxed.

About a decade ago, a bunch of data center companies got fantastic deals with my city (low/no tax). People are pretty upset about it. A few years in there was a report on how many people they employeed. I think combined it was under 10 who lived in the area.

	▲	scoofy 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I mean, just look at what happened with Foxconn in Racine, WI: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/what-happened-to-foxco... The community is a heck of a lot poorer now because they were convinced to offer incentives for a factory that never came. Once these firms can dangle hope in return for tax treatment or infrastructure, then you have a zero-sum game between townships where the winner — if there is a winner — ends up being the firm first, and the loser — if there is a loser, will be the township first.