> they generally provide minimal benefits to the local communities

Data centers pay Loudoun County, Virginia $26 in taxes for every $1 in services they consume - nearly $1.3 billion, 45% of the county's budget - which is why Loudoun homeowners pay the lowest property tax rate in Northern Virginia.

https://www.loudoun.gov/faq.aspx?TID=241

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stryan 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Loudoun County is a very rich part of NOVA and was able to fight for those concessions, as well as being in a very desirable part of the country for those DC's to built in (close to major infrastructure but still undeveloped at the time) so they had a better position to argue from.

Plus, as I mentioned in another comment, while Loundoun County gets the tax benefits the whole area is affected by the DC's power consumption due to the regional power grid and shared infrastructure (i.e. the Potomoc) so part of my already high power bills was due to the data centers there and I got minimal benefits.

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qarl2 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes. See my other comment about how Oregon was able to solve the power problem. The residents of Oregon will be paying LOWER prices than before the data centers.

The data center problem seems to be merely a government corruption problem. Which is a problem, of course, but not limited to data centers.

	▲	stryan 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Alas, something like that wouldn't have helped me either as I was on the other side of the river :) . But yeah some sort of regional coordination between local governments or something like that would fix or at least help the problem. Like I said in my original comment, I think really the problem is just the scale of the build out. Before the AI boom DCs were being built slowly enough that it wasn't a problem and/or costs could be amortized over time. But cost sharing agreements and subsidization needs to be done before the DCs are built the they're certainly not going to push for it, so the people need to. Lower state taxes in the future due to DCs subsidizing power is (sincerely) great and all, but it doesn't do shit for the families deciding between food and heating their house in the winter before those benefits kick in.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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