[dleavitt]

Yeah, not a great article and doesn't seem concerned with the "why."

A couple of possible explanations:

1. There are beneficial effects other than tax revenue - maybe these municipalities are hoping the new data centers will help turn them into hubs - draw other businesses, talented workers, etc.

2. The decision-makers' incentives aren't well-aligned with those of the municipality. Maybe the local business owners who fund their campaigns benefit disproportionately from these big projects. Maybe the headline of "brought Apple to North Carolina" outweighs the actual, harmful effects of the deal they signed when the next election comes around, etc.

[puzzle]

I knew people at Google that travelled to data centers very frequently. There are all sorts of indirect extra business and tax revenues from these operations that aren't tied to local employees alone. Mine is just a small example, but there are more. Even with good baseline data, it might not be trivial to assess the full economic impact of one of these sites.