A data centre provides almost no jobs (except during construction), and draws a significant amount of resources (electricity, water, noise pollution).
Why should any community want something that only enriches Amazon taking up vast swaths of land in their backyard?
Most importantly, location!
Location is not fungible, and at least in my local area, data center developers seem to want to place their datacenters in up-and-coming areas, where they would block the development of higher-quality structures.
There's no reason the datacenters can't be built in the middle of nowhere, far from people, especially as they don't provide any jobs to the community.
I think it would have been pointless though, because LVT doesn't stand a chance: Conservatives would hear "tax" and immediately say "no", and progressives would be unhappy that their elderly mom wouldn't be able to live alone in their 6-bedroom childhood home.
The motto seems to be, “Neighborhoods full, I like things the way they are. No more change please.” Doesn’t matter if it’s a data center, housing, or any type of development.
Maybe it doesn’t benefit some individuals, but the community improves.
All of our favorite locations were created far before the era of modern planning, when growth was largely uncontrolled.
> in practice the growth leads to government inefficiency and that offsets any costs savings.
Do you have any examples of this? I've never heard of it before and never seen data that could support it. Unless the "government inefficiency" is highly restrictive zoning, which would be an unusual framing but one that I would highly endorse if that's what you mean!