[DrewADesign]

So maybe someone can open a new sandwich shop and accomplish the same thing without screwing everybody else in the process. Not only that, Lewiston probably doesn’t have a glut of data center talent seeking employment —I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that not a single person living in Lewiston when a project like that was approved would be employed there.

[will4274]

The data center jobs are middle class. With progressive taxation, those 30 middle class jobs generate about 100 average people's worth of revenue. Presumably Lewiston has schools which could use the funds.

And presumably everybody in Lewiston already has lunch somewhere, so a new sandwich shop that was successful would put another lunch spot out of business, for a net zero jobs.

Edit: the larger point here is that jobs, particularly skilled jobs, don't grow on trees (much like money). New technologies and new jobs replace old technologies and old jobs. If you put a ban on new technologies and new jobs, you'll just have more unemployed people.

[DrewADesign]

Nobody that lives in Lewiston will get those jobs, and the people that get those jobs will almost certainly live in more upscale places nearby.

Tack a new building that size onto Bath Ironworks? That’s a huge boon. Heck even an Amazon warehouse would be an improvement. But a data center? For the people in Lewiston, it would be far more of a negative than a positive — and that’s the way it works in this country. We value money over people. If private equity, venture capitalists or huge corporations want something that you don’t want, you lose. Getting a policy win is a rarity and I’d be surprised if it didn’t get successfully challenged in court.

[will4274]

You forgot to include an argument in your comment. I cited specific positive impacts (tax revenue) but you just talked about negative impact in the abstract, without citing anything specific, and then went on a rant about how the world works.

[dawnerd]

A sandwich shop would also be infinitely more useful to the population.