Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo • Hacker News Board

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#391

Post by ToValueFunfetti » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

da_chicken wrote: post #329

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think that the claim >Nobody invests a billion dollars in a facility without first lobbying to get an exemption from property taxes. Most states in the US have passed incentives that include sales and property tax exemptions. is not at all supported as "exactly the truth" by a link that lists 11 states with property tax abatements, most of which are not full exemptions. Am I mistaken?

11 states have them specifically for data centers. Most states have some form of this in general : https://www.michiganbusiness.org/services/pa-198/ What's more, having a statutory abatement is only one way to get around property taxes. What you also see are things like a industrial revenue bonds. Those don't require a special law. They just shift the tax burden to the public. Again, the idea here is that you're ince…

This notion that legislatures are blind to the number of jobs that will be created is contradicted by your previous link. You can scroll through table 2 for this- Alabama expects 20 jobs, Georgia 5-25, Nevada 10, etc. These states don't seem at all confused about how much local labor is required. And this is what they're setting as minimums; they believe that, absent mandate, the data centers would provide fewer jobs than these numbers.

Any source that they're confused about (b)? I believed you about (a) until I read your source- the notion that they're getting misled by construction job numbers was plausible- but I can't imagine how a government would be so fundamentally confused about what data centers are as to believe they'll provide local services or somehow goods.

What seems more likely to me is that the states/counties/cities believe that they will take in enough tax revenue while providing very little back in government resources that throwing in a discount works out just fine economically. I don't think you've made much of a case otherwise.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#392

Post by WarmWash » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:04 PM UTC

e40 wrote: post #310

deepsun wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO noise pollution is the easiest one to solve: just put all the AC fans on the far side of the datacenter. If not enough, surround with noise absorbing panels. If not enough, just get a different fan design, more coolers, and run them at half speed. They can even afford Noctua :) I bet nearby rail yard produces way more loud noises. Datacenter is like the cleanest and most ecofriendly business you can imagine.

> Datacenter is like the cleanest and most ecofriendly business you can imagine. Tell that to the residents of Memphis.

Anything can be done so rushed and shitty that it has negative consequences.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#393

Post by mrbestregards » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:06 PM UTC

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #359

betaby wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean a bribe is rarely publicly announced I would guess. Therefore Occam's razor reasoning is valid mental model.

A bribe is in fact, so rare, that I'd assume one would have at least a bit of evidence to present that accusation. Or is this one of those, "I don't like that person, so I'll just make stuff up" things?

It's whatever you need it to be.

The corollary would be that, in all likelihood, bribes are documented as rare because you are incentivized to ensure that a bribe is never made public. Has Memphis done this before? Is this strange behavior to allow such a construction project to move forward while harming its residents then slow-rolling solutions?

Either way, this is a forum and not Academic Decathlon.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#394

Post by WarmWash » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:07 PM UTC

bryan_w wrote: post #362

throwaway2037 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hat tip for the additional source. I have no love for people in this fight looking for a "total win/defeat". It is a dumb way to approach large construction projects. Can you share some links to the Threads account?

Here's one account, @rooey.wav https://www.threads.com/share/BAQzYUI7Nf/ There's another account that I thought was something like @stopdatacenters but I'm having trouble finding it atm

Once you get audience captured on a single topic like that, you are damned to being the biggest champion of it forever.

Happened to lots of influencers during the whole vax debacle of COVID. Mostly sane people who didn't catch a big break until they mentioned there might be mercury in the covid vax. Five years later and they are still tugging those lines.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#395

Post by WarmWash » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #296

mapping365 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eminent domain is like the the Thanos snap version of state power in a democratic / capitalist country. The ultimate representation of the peoples will over the individuals desire.

Eminent domain is almost always used to make corporations richer. In other parts of the country, eminent domain is being used to seize people's homes to build AI DCs.

Corporations are the money engines of the government.

I don't know of any other way the government makes money other than riding on the back of corporations.

So yes, from the governments POV, using eminent domain to make corporations richer also has the direct effect of making the government richer.

Just think about it a little bit.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#396

Post by RebeccaTheDev » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #339

We’ve been building data centers for many decades without problems. I used to service equipment at some in my area. Many had big chunks of green space around them, very desirable to live near. The current climate around seems very sudden.

> The current climate around seems very sudden.

Is it?

Grievances against big tech - over issues like the stupendous amount of money being created for very few, and the damage being inflicted among many other things - have been building for years. Whether you view those complaints as legitimate or not very much depends on your point of view, but the anger is there, it is real, and it is palpable.

AI was the tipping point for a lot people, especially younger people. My teenager refuses to use it. Then, Elon Musk went to Memphis and threw gas on the fire, providing a perfect illustration of why people are so upset.

Data centers are an avatar right now of all of that because they are a physical manifestation of what people can't otherwise fight.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#397

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #78

mixdup wrote: post #24

I don't know what DC Blox was going to put in this particular datacenter, but they are a "traditional" colocation datacenter company. Maybe this one would've been superdense GPUs with a jet engine as electrical generator causing all kinds of noise, but it's also just as likely this would've been a project that 5 years ago no one would've batted an eye over, and wouldn't cause any issues in the local neighborhood That…

The funny thing about data center concerns in Chicagoland, where I'm hearing it, is that data centers are better neighbors than almost any other commercial real estate. The data centers in Aurora are surrounded with prairie green space; everything else, including the nicest office buildings, are a sea of eyesore asphalt parking lots. I get there can be real concerns, locally-specific, about energy usage (again: they…

> The data centers in Aurora are surrounded with prairie green space; everything else, including the nicest office buildings, are a sea of eyesore asphalt parking lots.

The concern about datacenters isn’t about visual aesthetics or traffic (the relative absence of workers—which are the traffic and parking lot drivers—for the footprint is actually one of the concerns, though not na environmental one) so this seems to be less of a contradiction than it is implied to be.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#398

Post by vidarh » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #348

vidarh wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've "imported" this concern to the UK too, largely driven by the same issues seemingly whipped up by US lack of regulation much more than local examples (that's not to say there have been no cases of bad buildouts here). Many of the people now extremely opposed to data centres seem to believe the UK didn't have any data centres recently, never mind that you can pass by data centres in e.g. London Docklands and mist…

The power supply issue is very real, though. UK has expensive electricity and high-megawattage data centers are obviously not going to help with that. (The water issue doesn't pass the smell test for me because I expected data centers to be closed loop, but if it does apply? London is currently on a hosepipe ban!) Let's not forget that some of this is a proxy issue for the downstream impacts of AI, spam, job destruct…

The power supply concern is real, but it's also "just" a regulatory issue. The UK has some expectations of paying for impact on the upstream power network, but the requirements are not nearly sufficient to deal with a massive increased demand.

Fixing regulations for that to require demonstrating commercial arrangements to fund additional supply to mitigate cost would address that, however, and that'd be a broader social good: Start out with the assumption that anything energy intensive must cover its externalities. Then you can selectively drop those requirements for things you consider sufficiently beneficial to justify socialising the cost.

More general-purpose regulations would be better, but local authorities can already to a large extend address this as part of the process of granting (or not) planning permission.

Regarding the water issue, it is real in places where it is insufficiently regulated - it's cheaper to dump the water many places. But it absolutely can be closed loop, and you can get district heating out of it. You just need to make the demands.

> Let's not forget that some of this is a proxy issue for the downstream impacts of AI, spam, job destruction, community disruption, etc.

Absolutely. But I also think that peoples real concerns will get harmed from going after data centres with arguments that are easy to dismiss instead of directing the criticism against the real issues.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#399

Post by adamtaylor_13 » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

mrbestregards wrote: post #393

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bribe is in fact, so rare, that I'd assume one would have at least a bit of evidence to present that accusation. Or is this one of those, "I don't like that person, so I'll just make stuff up" things?

It's whatever you need it to be. The corollary would be that, in all likelihood, bribes are documented as rare because you are incentivized to ensure that a bribe is never made public. Has Memphis done this before? Is this strange behavior to allow such a construction project to move forward while harming its residents then slow-rolling solutions? Either way, this is a forum and not Academic Decathlon.

[dead]

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#400

Post by adamtaylor_13 » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC

throw0101d wrote: post #366

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have proof that people are bribing the federal government to ignore federal law? That seems like quite the accusation and I haven't heard anything about that.

> Do you have proof that people are bribing the federal government to ignore federal law? Why does there have to be an actual exchange? “For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Óscar_R._Benavides#Later_life

My intent is to highlight that unless you have evidence of corruption, accusing people of bribery is just slander by another name.

I hold our politicians in no high regard, but I do hold myself to some standard in that I won't accuse someone of corrupt conduct unless I actually have evidence.

The point being, it's laughable to slander someone else's morality while you lie to posture your own.