I live in Northern Virginia, where data centres are generally considered to be the worst thing in existence. But not long after moving here I read an article in the local paper about how the county government was able to increase their budget and decrease property taxes (by far their biggest source of revenue), while also posting a healthy surplus. They literally had more money than they knew what to do with. This was also the same time as when the federal Department of Education announced it would cut all funding to the school board because they refused to follow their guidance on LGBT issues (the school board is continuing to support trans children). The county basically said “lol so what, we’ll make up the difference”. This is more or less entirely due to data centres, which have gone from being a negligible source of income to by far the biggest source over the last few years.
I moved here from the UK, where my council was about to reduce bin collections from fortnightly to every three weeks, because they’re completely broke. The schools are falling down, the roads are full of potholes, and the road signs are being swallowed up by vegetation. But, you know. They can be noisy and they look a bit ugly – so it’s swings and roundabouts really.
Current-Function-729 on
Even this sub are NIMBYs about DCs.
It’s amazing how well the propaganda works
mebesasporfa on
These datacenters in particular are connected to two major hydroelectric projects so the energy is clean and there are no noisy turbines, and altogether account for only 8% of the county’s water demand. They just have a quiet box sitting there shitting out gold for the municipality. Basically the ideal situation all around.
The poverty rate dropping from almost 30% to 6.2% is pretty incredible.
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I live in Northern Virginia, where data centres are generally considered to be the worst thing in existence. But not long after moving here I read an article in the local paper about how the county government was able to increase their budget and decrease property taxes (by far their biggest source of revenue), while also posting a healthy surplus. They literally had more money than they knew what to do with. This was also the same time as when the federal Department of Education announced it would cut all funding to the school board because they refused to follow their guidance on LGBT issues (the school board is continuing to support trans children). The county basically said “lol so what, we’ll make up the difference”. This is more or less entirely due to data centres, which have gone from being a negligible source of income to by far the biggest source over the last few years.
I moved here from the UK, where my council was about to reduce bin collections from fortnightly to every three weeks, because they’re completely broke. The schools are falling down, the roads are full of potholes, and the road signs are being swallowed up by vegetation. But, you know. They can be noisy and they look a bit ugly – so it’s swings and roundabouts really.
Even this sub are NIMBYs about DCs.
It’s amazing how well the propaganda works
These datacenters in particular are connected to two major hydroelectric projects so the energy is clean and there are no noisy turbines, and altogether account for only 8% of the county’s water demand. They just have a quiet box sitting there shitting out gold for the municipality. Basically the ideal situation all around.
The poverty rate dropping from almost 30% to 6.2% is pretty incredible.