New York doesn't have many "empty lots". If it's agricultural land that's getting converted into datacenters, it probably supports a comparable number of temporary and permanent jobs per acre in the region's climate.
> Over the past 10 years the number of farms and amount of land actively being farmed in the United States has steadily decreased. Between 2015 and 2025 the number of farms decreased by almost 10 percent and the land being farmed dropped by more than 4 percent. The changes in New York in this period have been more dramatic, with 15 percent fewer New York farms and 11 percent less land in farm production than in 2015.
Are you sure New York doesn't have many empty lots? I can go drive through Syracuse, Rochester, or Buffalo and find plenty. There's a ton of land that is not being farmed that are is fully of rocky, poor quality soil.
The data centers weren't going to go into NYC, but upstate New York has plenty of space for Data Centers. Oswego has two power plants, and could use two more. Building is good.
> Over the past 10 years the number of farms and amount of land actively being farmed in the United States has steadily decreased. Between 2015 and 2025 the number of farms decreased by almost 10 percent and the land being farmed dropped by more than 4 percent. The changes in New York in this period have been more dramatic, with 15 percent fewer New York farms and 11 percent less land in farm production than in 2015.
https://www.osc.ny.gov/reports/new-york-farms-and-farmland-d...
National trend:
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/58268