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No a big part is that the buildings are ugly and transform the character of a place that folks grew up in. Maybe focus should be put on beautifying these buildi
by redwood 13d ago
No a big part is that the buildings are ugly and transform the character of a place that folks grew up in. Maybe focus should be put on beautifying these buildings in some way
- wood_spirit 13d agoEven if invisible they would not be a popular neighbour because they are a very overt reminder to the poor people around them how uneven the wealth and political power distribution is between them and the tech exec owners?
- bluGill 12d agoThey should be popular - they pay property taxes to the local schools without taking much from the community at all. (note that I'm coming out against the all too common tax breaks that they get to build in your city)
- wood_spirit 12d agoThey should be underground (that’s not shockingly expensive at the scale we talk about) and a net green-energy-driven power producer which they give away for free and pay property taxes. The list of things they could do that would be a cheap 1-2% of the total build and running costs to soften it are long.
- ipdashc 12d ago> They should be underground (that’s not shockingly expensive at the scale we talk about) ... I'm not sure you realize the size of a modern hyperscale datacenter? They're pretty dang big. The amount of earthmoving to bury one would also be awful for the environment. There's really no need to complicate it that much, they're big warehouses full of computers, just shove them on some unused industrial land somewhere as is already being done. They should be required to pay for new renewable generation, I agree. That much is common sense.
- wood_spirit 12d agoYes i didn’t mean deep. Berms and roof gardens can completely hide them.
- ipdashc 11d agoSure, that's much more feasible, but there's no real point. We don't do this for any other kind of industrial infrastructure (except the kind that HAS to go in residential areas, like utility substations). It's like the ultimate first world problem, spending money and gas on earthmoving so that the few dozen people who might occasionally drive past this thing can glance at a grassy berm instead of a concrete wall.
- iamnothere 13d agoI don’t see how they are any uglier than any other industrial facility. That’s really what these are and it’s how they should be viewed. Typically most people don’t want to live next door to a factory, but there are some places where it’s appropriate to build them, often remote land or former industrial sites (brownfields) where you don’t want housing due to previous contamination.
- redwood 11d agoSure any massive structure going to formally farm country will elicit a negative reaction
- ipdashc 13d agoPeople in my area are complaining about data centers being built in rural fields and on former aluminum plant and power plant sites. The debate has become pretty detached from reality. What remains rooted in reality mostly comes down to electric bills / power consumption and the fact that, as everyone is saying, it's the only way for people to push back against big tech billionaires.