By Townhall Chicago News Staff
Memphis Mayor Paul Young said data center development generated $54 million in local tax revenue this year, up from about $25 million last year, as communities nationwide debate new data center projects.
Entrepreneur Elon Musk said last week that an area data center has made Memphis “booming,” pointing to full restaurants and hotels and wages he said were twice the previous prevailing wage.
“The tax revenue that the county and the city are earning is tremendous,” Musk said. “If you talk to the people in town, they all feel it because their businesses are booming.”
Young, a Democrat, said the project was the second-largest taxpayer in Shelby County last year and that this year’s revenue likely ranks it first. He said the city is also addressing concerns about the project’s effects.
“We want to make sure that we are articulating what protections and guardrails we’re putting in place for the environmental sides that people are concerned about — the quality of life, noise, traffic,” Young said, citing a 90-day executive order covering those issues.
In Prince George’s County, Maryland, activist Taylor McCollum organized opposition to a proposed $5 billion data center on a long-vacant site, gaining more than 23,000 signatures on a Change.org petition after a video about her campaign drew more than 300,000 views online. McCollum said she wants the site used for a park or entertainment facility instead.
“I think that this would be a great site to bring some like urban airpark or American Dream type facility, something that’s bigger and broader and can serve all the residents of Prince George’s County,” McCollum said.
Radio host Dan Proft said 46 of 47 data center-related ballot measures failed following last week’s elections, though the specific measures were not identified.
Donald Kendall, director of the Heartland Institute’s Glenn C. Haskins Emerging Issues Center, said opposition to data centers could ease if artificial intelligence companies deliver on promised breakthroughs.
“If it occurs that there’s some big breakthrough with some new cure for Alzheimer’s or cancer or something along those lines, I think you’ll see a massive popularity swing with artificial intelligence,” Kendall said.
Kendall described the current data center construction as one of the largest infrastructure buildouts in history, with a price tag in the trillions of dollars. He said the companies building data centers are also investing in new natural gas power plants and grid upgrades to supply them.
“What we’re actually seeing is a strengthening of our energy systems,” Kendall said. “It’s actually going to be, in the long term, a very big boon for the American economy.”
