I guess their point is that of all possible industrial usecases, data centers are the least obnoxious one. I live in one of the countries that actually manufactures things, unlike the US, and I find it hard to argue with that. Any noise pollution caused by data centers is far far less than most industrial setups. It's the same with every other resource, water, electricity, effect on local shared infrastructure like roads and commerce, etc,. Other industries are an order of magnitude worse.

Given that you _have_ to have some industrial setup unless you want to import everything (tokens, in this case), datacenters are far and away the best choice.

I'll add a qualifier to the above, modifying it to say that of all industrial setups generating atleast X dollars of economic value, datacenters are far and away the best in terms of impact on nbhd.

The jobs argument also falls apart, when you consider that it's essentially 100 jobs in return for just an office building worth of space. If you want a thousand job plant just build that as well next town over, it will take way way more space and other resources though. The reason that didnt happen even before this datacenter boom is because most manufacturing setups are fairly infeasible in rich countries like the US. I can't imagine the response to a textile plant or a steel plant if this is the response to datacenters.

I agree however, that if you colocate a gigantic power plant, then you get the worst of both worlds. Fewer jobs and the hindrance of a big power plant near residential areas. Grid expansion being slow in developed areas like most of the US is not surprising though.

But this is pretty much the best case scenario. Tolerating the power plant until the grid expands is the way to go I suppose.