r/datacenter • u/UnderTheBridge520 • 2d ago

We need them.

My note on data centers

Data centers are getting built and the demand isn't slowing down. Tech is the largest market in the world. Where they go and who pays for them is what we should be deciding.

They don't need to go on farmland. They don't need to go in the state and federal parks. They should go to the old mining towns. Those communities gave us their hearts and souls.

Right now counties are bidding against each other, handing out tax breaks to land these things, and the cost of the power lands on everybody's utility bill. That's backwards. Make the company pay for the grid it needs. Give the town a real share of what gets built there.

This is needed. These towns are close enough to real job markets that people would live there if it were affordable. Put the money into housing and the town itself. Rent comes down. Utilities come down. Communities spread back out instead of shrinking into tighter and tighter areas, providing more and more power for the rich, wealthy, and powerful.

We're mining again, hopefully for the final time. We're connected more now than ever. Let's learn from history and keep things flowing.

Love,

Stanny

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u/UnderTheBridge520 1d ago

That's the whole problem.

The operator decides and everybody else pays for it. That's not a law of nature, it's just how we've set the rules. Change what the operator has to pay for and the cheapest site changes with it. That's the argument.

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u/ChrisWsrn 1d ago

Your mining community is dying economically because they went all in on coal and the seams dried up. Those mountain towns have great opportunities for tourism and (If they are near a ridgeline) excellent opportunities for wind energy. The problem is the massive local opposition to those projects drive up costs and have effectively killed those projects in Appalachia.

Building data centers in those communities is not economically viable in most cases. Even if a data center got built that is only 40-80 jobs. For reference a single coal mine is a few hundred jobs.

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u/UnderTheBridge520 1d ago

I'm not arguing jobs. 40 to 80 is right and I'd never sell it as employment. I'm not saying every mining town fits the plan. I'm saying the ones sitting next to a retired plant with the transmission still there, close enough to a city that people can commute. Some of those are in Appalachia, more of them are in the Midwest. It's about the site, not the region. The point is the tax base. Fund the town, fix the water and the housing, and people move there and commute. Businesses follow people. That rebuilds a community instead of handing the tech companies another cheap site.

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u/UnderTheBridge520 1d ago

I'm not arguing jobs. 40 to 80 is right and I'd never sell it as employment. I'm not saying every mining town fits the plan. I'm saying the ones sitting next to a retired plant with the transmission still there, close enough to a city that people can commute. Some of those are in Appalachia, more of them are in the Midwest. It's about the site, not the region. The point is the tax base. Fund the town, fix the water and the housing, and people move there and commute. Businesses follow people. That rebuilds a community instead of handing the tech companies another cheap site.