[qurren]

They need to hire IT, maintainence, and security to run the datacenters, and there aren't many qualified people in the boonies. Small towns are better targets, and honestly also just objectively less damaging to the environment.

None of this NIMBYism is about the datacenter itself, it's all a protest against AI making the economy really shitty for them.

[teeray]

Sounds like they should build the equivalent of a little mining town out in the boonies too and start working on the housing crisis simultaneously. “Move to Nowhere, USA, and get cheap, new housing and a good-paying job” would get them the talent they want.

EDIT: yes, I know mining towns had their own share of problems (I’ve heard “16 tons” too), but knowing the hazards of the past, I think we can figure out a more equitable structure with this kind of setup.

[qurren]

Mining towns used to work in the days when one parent worked full-time and one parent raised kids full-time, and job security, unions, and pensions were a thing.

In modern times, both parents often have career ambitions, and the modern capitalist economy and housing pricing has greedily recalibrated to every family needing two incomes. So you're not going to have many families willing to move to the boonies unless you (at the bare minimum) hand out doubly-high salaries.

Very likely that's not enough though, as it's also a massive financial risk to them if you can just lay them off after the next earnings report with no pension to continue supporting them. Most modern families would rather stay where jobs are slightly more likely to exist.

[win311fwg]

> “Move to Nowhere, USA, and get cheap, new housing and a good-paying job”

These types of opportunities already exist but are rarely taken up upon. More of them means more jobs unfilled.

When those mining towns were the way of the world people moved around a lot more. It was no big deal to pack your bags and move there. While census data only started being collected from the 1950s onward, it is estimated that ~40% of the population would move in a given year at the hight of the mining booms. Even in the 1950s, when we started collecting concrete data, around 30% of the population would move in a given year. Now only around 8% of the population will move in a given year.

Nowadays there is an expectation that you can stay put. For example, if you watch housing affordability discussions closely you'll notice the theme is always "I cannot afford a house where I am currently located", not "I cannot afford a house anywhere in the world". Attitudes about living arrangements have changed as compared to the past and the AI companies are not about to change it back any time soon. They have to work with people they want to hire, and that means putting the work where the people are already found.

[toast0]

You need on the order of 15 permanent onsite employees to run a datacenter; 5 each for 24/7 coverage of security, building maintenance, and tech. You probably don't really need 24/7 onsite for building maintenance or tech. Traveling employees or (probably traveling) contractors can handle projects that exceed the local scope.

Should be able to locally source security and building maintenance, if the pay is good. These are skills that are needed everywhere. The onsite tech can likely be sourced locally too: first and foremost, they're remote hands ... knowledgeable remote hands are nicer, but the mandatory skills are: read and follow directions, notice and report unusual circumstances, lift and manipulate heavy objects. It's not rocket surgery.

If you put your datacenter in the near boonies, say 30 minutes away from the nearest suburb, you can usually still find the big lots you need, and people can commute from there: a 30 minute commute with no traffic isn't too awful. Of course, you'll have neighbors on large lots who didn't think through that living out on the boonies with no zoning meant noisy neighbors could move in. :P

[win311fwg]

While most people wouldn't hesitate to travel 30 minutes out of town, the generally don't ever think to see if jobs exist 30 minutes out of town, and thus won't find the work there. When looking for work they search within the city they live in, not the next town over with a name they might not even know. This is a real problem for a lot of businesses that exist 30 minutes out of town.

In fairness, the companies behind these data centres are well known and have endless marketing budgets, so they can likely find a way to close that gap where the typical rural-based business cannot, but at the same time why take the risk when you can just as easily build the datacenter right beside the person you want to hire?

[toast0]

> so they can likely find a way to close that gap

I mean, typically you just list your job in the nearby major city, even when the site address isn't there. Same thing that you do when listing your hotel or your car for sale.

[win311fwg]

30 minutes out of town isn't nearby anymore. The highways are surprisingly efficient. And consider that it is more like a 1-1.5 hour drive for someone living on the opposing end of the city — possibly more if it is a large city. Advertising a job 1.5 hours away as if it is local doesn't tend to win you any admiration from job seekers. Maybe AI companies are prominent enough that they can piss off workers and still hire them in the end, but that doesn't fly for most businesses.

But, again, why take the risk when you can just as easily put the work right beside the workers?

[qurren]

I don't consider 30 minutes away from town the "boonies", that's more like a normal commute. The boonies would be like a 3 hour drive in the Sonora desert.

[toast0]

Well, "boonies" is pretty ill defined, but my criteria is most homes are are 10+ acre lots, and large lots are widely available.

You want your datacenter to be in reach of interstate highways (rail might be nice, too), two electrical substations [1], and close to fiber that's already run. That restricts your available boonies, but there's still lots outside of the east coast.

[1] yes, you'll have onsite generation, and yes, you might plan to run from onsite generation most of the time, but you still want to have the option for utility power, and it's nice to have two substations to get more uptime, subject to more transfer switch complexity.