I spend most of my time thinking about where to deploy capital in real estate, what markets are growing, what asset classes have tailwinds, and where the next wave of development opportunity is forming. Right now, there is no clearer signal in commercial real estate than data centers. The demand is real. The capital is flowing. And in many parts of the country, the welcome mat is out.
But not everywhere. In a growing number of communities, particularly across the Midwest, local opposition is killing projects before they break ground. Residents show up at zoning meetings armed with worst-case anecdotes from Northern Virginia and emotional arguments about noise, water, and property values.
Politicians, eager to avoid controversy, table the discussion or ban data centers outright. And billions of dollars in investment quietly relocate to states that want them.
I’m writing this because the misinformation problem is getting worse, and the economic stakes are too high to stay silent.
The economic case is overwhelming
Between 2017 and 2023, the U.S. data center industry contributed $715.5 billion in total tax revenue across federal, state, and local governments, according to PwC and the Center of Your Digital World’s 2025 Impact Study. That’s not a projection, it’s what already happened.
Take Nebraska, a relatively small data center market. Just 490 full-time data center workers and 1,500 construction workers generated $1.3 billion in combined tax revenue in a single year. Ohio’s data center ecosystem supported 82,800 jobs in 2023 alone, including roughly 16,100 on-site roles, with the rest spread across support services, supply chains, and the broader local economy.
These aren’t warehouse jobs. A single large-scale data center can create over 4,000 construction jobs over two to three years, followed by up to 300 permanent, high-skilled operational roles. Specifically, the data centers we are building today with Clayco are on track to have over 4,000 craft workers at peak construction. Plus, there is a multiplier effect that ripples through restaurants, housing, retail, and services. Construction wages on these projects are among the highest in the trades. The operational tech salaries that follow are even better.
And unlike a traditional construction project, where the work ends at ribbon-cutting, data centers require constant equipment refreshes and upgrades. The servers, cooling systems, and power infrastructure inside these facilities are updated on rolling cycles, creating ongoing maintenance work and consistent demand for skilled electricians, mechanical technicians, and controls specialists long after the building is finished. This isn’t a one-time construction boom. It’s a permanent pipeline of skilled trade work. For mid-size communities struggling with declining industrial bases, this is exactly the kind of investment that transforms a local economy.
The opposition isn’t backed by data
Let’s address the most common objections head-on, because they keep coming up, and they keep being wrong.
“They use too much water.”
Modern data center facilities increasingly use closed-loop or air-based cooling systems that recirculate water or eliminate water use entirely. The industry trend is aggressively moving toward water-efficient and water-free cooling, particularly in water-stressed regions. Many operators are signing municipal agreements to use reclaimed water or pledging net-positive water restoration. This isn’t the 2015 data center playbook anymore.
Rather than reacting to scarcity, Ohio is building a governance model designed to preserve long-term water security while sustaining data center growth. Other states can move to this proactive resource governance to avoid future backlash and continue data center growth.
“They’ll raise our electric bills.”
This one is especially frustrating in Missouri, where the narrative has taken hold even though most proposed data centers aren’t even built or online yet. They literally cannot be causing current rate increases. Missouri Senator Cindy O’Laughlin made the point clearly in February 2026: Current rate increases are driven by green energy mandates, not data centers. Solar operates at roughly 18% of nameplate capacity, but ratepayers pay 100% of the cost. States with the highest power prices are consistently states with the most aggressive renewable mandates. Meanwhile, data centers often fund utility infrastructure upgrades that benefit the entire grid, improvements that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
And Missouri isn’t leaving this to chance. The state legislature passed a law requiring data centers to pay for all the electricity they consume, meaning no subsidies from ratepayers. The Missouri Public Service Commission is finalizing special tariff schedules for any customer exceeding 100 megawatts of demand. “Data centers are required by law to pay rates that the PSC has determined reasonably cover their fair share of energy costs to serve them. We are not offering them any discounts,” said Rob Dixon, Senior Director of Economic, Community, and Business Development at Ameren. “The infrastructure costs to connect large data centers to the grid are not passed on to other customers.” The law was backed by a broad coalition including the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and the Missouri AFL-CIO; two groups that rarely agree on anything.
“They don’t create enough permanent jobs.”
Ohio has 82,800 ecosystem jobs. That number includes direct, indirect, and induced employment. The idea that a billion-dollar technology campus creates fewer economic benefits than the vacant lot or underperforming industrial site it replaces is simply not supported by any serious analysis.
But the real story is what happens after construction. Unlike a traditional building, where the work ends at ribbon-cutting, data centers require constant equipment refreshes and upgrades. The servers, cooling systems, power infrastructure, and network hardware inside these facilities are updated on rolling 3- to 5-year cycles, creating a permanent pipeline of skilled trade work for electricians, mechanical technicians, HVAC specialists, and controls engineers. As the Missouri Times reported, these developments “promise high-paying construction jobs that extend over multiple years due to the continuous need for upgrades and maintenance.”
“They’re ugly and hurt property values.”
Modern data centers are designed with aesthetic buffers, extensive landscaping, and noise mitigation systems. They’re typically built on industrial-zoned land that sees property value increases from the economic activity they generate. The honest comparison isn’t a data center versus a nature preserve. It’s a data center versus an abandoned factory or an empty field generating zero tax revenue.
This is a national security issue
The conversation about data centers too often stays at the local level: water, noise, and property values. But the strategic dimension matters just as much. Secure, resilient data infrastructure plays a meaningful role in national security. Our financial systems, communications networks, healthcare records, and emerging AI and defense technologies all depend on domestic, hardened facilities operating without interruption.
Dependence on foreign data infrastructure is a strategic vulnerability. The United States is in a global competition to build and maintain sovereign computing capacity, and the communities that host these facilities are directly contributing to national resilience. Gigawatt-scale campuses are being built across the country right now. This is infrastructure investment at the scale of the interstate highway system, and it matters for reasons that extend well beyond any single municipality’s zoning debate.
Misinformation is real – and growing
Opposition groups use emotional framing (e.g., noise, aesthetics, vague fears about property values) without engaging the actual data. Social media amplifies worst-case scenarios from Virginia’s early, poorly planned data center corridor in Loudoun County as if they apply to every proposed facility everywhere. National media coverage from NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post tends to center opposition narratives, which local activists then cite as authoritative.
The irony is hard to miss: the same people opposing data centers use the services they power every single day. Banking, healthcare records, streaming, online shopping, AI assistants — all of it runs through the exact infrastructure they’re trying to block.
What’s needed is proactive engagement from developers, transparent community benefit agreements, and elected leaders willing to present facts rather than duck the conversation. A 2025 national survey by Atomik Research found that most Americans support data centers when they understand the jobs, investment, and tax relief they bring.
More than half of respondents didn’t even realize data centers power the everyday services they rely on. The awareness gap is the problem, and it’s solvable.
Smart communities are playing this differently
Not every community is getting this wrong. Texas has welcomed gigawatt-scale campuses with open arms, reaping construction employment, utility investment, and long-term tax base expansion. Nebraska, a small market by any measure, turned a modest data center presence into $1.3 billion in tax revenue. Ohio embraced data center development and now supports nearly 83,000 ecosystem jobs.
Georgia may be the strongest example. A 2025 state analysis by the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute found that data centers created 28,350 construction jobs and added $3.4 billion to the state economy in a single year, plus 5,471 permanent operations roles generating another $823 million in economic activity. The property tax impact is staggering: four new metro Atlanta data centers averaged $2.3 billion in assessed property value each, generating roughly $28 million in annual property tax revenue per project. Counties are using that money to build new schools and rebuild aging water infrastructure.
With 63 active data centers, 35 under construction, and 249 more announced, Georgia has a nearly $50 billion pipeline of projects. As PSC Commissioner Tricia Pridemore put it: “We have counties planning new school builds with this local revenue.”
The operators themselves are putting real money behind community investment. Meta’s Data Center Community Action Grants program has now allocated more than $94 million in direct funding across 3,700 projects globally, spanning 27 data center regions. In March 2026 alone, the latest round of grants is funding drone and smart board technology for agricultural training in Northeast Louisiana, AI literacy programs reaching more than 4,000 students near Bowling Green, Ohio, bilingual AI-powered health coaching for underserved communities in Temple, Texas, and a GPU-accelerated autonomous technology hub at Isothermal Community College in Forest City, North Carolina.
These aren’t press releases. They’re real investments in STEAM education, healthcare access, and workforce development in the exact communities hosting their facilities. This is what engaged corporate citizenship looks like, and it directly counters the “digital colonization” narrative gaining traction in national media.
Closing thoughts
The data center buildout is a once-in-a-generation infrastructure cycle, and I don’t use that phrase lightly. The closest historical parallel is the railroad. In the 1850s and 1860s, towns that welcomed the railroad became economic hubs for the next century. Towns that fought it, worried about noise, smoke, disruption to the way things were, got bypassed. Many of them never recovered. The railroad didn’t just move goods. It determined which communities thrived and which ones faded from the map.
Data centers are the railroads of the AI era. They are the physical infrastructure that the entire digital economy runs on, and the communities that host them will capture the tax revenue, jobs, workforce development, and the long-term economic gravity that comes with being on the right side of a technological revolution. Just as the Industrial Revolution rewarded the places that embraced the steam engine and the rail line, the AI revolution will reward the places that embrace the data center.
Communities have legitimate questions about these facilities, and they deserve honest, data-driven answers, not bans born from fear and misinformation. But let’s be clear about what’s at stake. This isn’t a zoning debate. It’s a decision about whether your community will be a hub or a footnote. The billions in investment, thousands of jobs, and decades of tax revenue don’t disappear when a town says no. They relocate to Texas, Indiana, Georgia, and every other state that’s ready and willing.
The towns that said yes to the railroad built the American economy. The towns saying yes to data centers are building the next one.
Shawn Clark is chief executive officer of CRG, which has Midwest offices in Chicago and St. Louis.
