Can someone explain to me why local governments are so against datacenters? It seems like a golden opportunity to build electric infrastructure that's paid for by corporations and if AI is a bubble at least that infrastructure will remain and continue to provide cheap power.

If your town users a peak of say 100MW and is powered by two 50MW feeds

Then a new DC creates another 300MW of demand and builds 300MW more feeds

Then the DC goes bust, you're left with 350MW of potential supply and 50MW of demand

Compare with a highway, you had a 2 lane road, and it was fine, with 1000 cars an hour, then someone expanded it to 8 lanes and filled them with another 3000 cars an hour.

Then they vanished, and you're left with an 8 lane road for 1000 cars an hour, paying 4 times the maintenance for extra unneeded capacity.

Existing power infra is likely fine enough for current demands. And building new infra doesn't necessarily mean it will be any cheaper to operate or use. So with datacentres providing rather little local economic activity after being build and potential impact on electricity costs say during night overall they are not that beneficial.