If I could slam one of my posts on local policymakers' desks, this one would be it.

The basic argument is that banning a local data center for the sake of preventing the externalities is identical to spending that amount of tax money to remove the externalities, and once you look at the cost it becomes an obviously crazy decision in a lot of places, and this frame can also help us see where it's not an obviously crazy decision too.

https://blog.andymasley.com/p/a-simple-trick-to-fix-the-data-center

@AndyMasley The missing piece of this, at least for people in the communities, is a vehicle or other guarantees that these efforts will actually happen, and not just be promises.

You need to consider the counterfactual as well though. So if you block a data center but allow another revenue-generating industry to develop the land, you're only down [data center tax revenue - other industry revenue]. Not sure how often this is the real trade off though.

Ofc you also need to add the other industry's externalities to the other side of the ledger.

@Politics_Reply @AndyMasley No, you'd need to establish much firmer delineation/definition of property right bundles. Once you do that, nuisance torts are the exception, because elsewhere tortfeasors know in advance what rights to purchase.

Very happy with this post, my one simple trick to clarify the data center debate

@dbreunig imo the reason politicians don't use the money to fix the externalities is partly that communities are just demanding other things. Like if they could choose between better schools or using less water they usually take the schools etc.

@codytfenwick I guess there aren't many places where I see the alternative popping up but can include that

@AndyMasley Yes but the same can be said of the entire zoning code. Abolish it in favor of nuisance torts

@MattBGilliland @AndyMasley That sounds like a good plan. Sadly (for a free people) I think guaranteeing a right to build without review would probably be controversial/unpopular in most places in the US

@AndyMasley sneaking in coase

@AndyMasley if people were economically literate to understand stand this we shouldn’t have a NIMBY / YIMBY debate. unfortunately progressive NIMBYs and anti-data-center folks have a lot of overlap.

@Politics_Reply @AndyMasley Elsewise*. Autocorrect fails me again.

@codytfenwick @AndyMasley I think this is very rarely the tradeoff, because land is very rarely the bottleneck.

@Politics_Reply @AndyMasley The idea of reform is popular, but every actual reform is unpopular with some set of people. It's coordination problems all the way down.

@AndyMasley That sounds like a constraint of the challenge with building data centers, that must be addressed in any approach.