Data centers raise local housing and power

New facility‑level data and instrumental‑variable estimates show that county‑level data center growth increases local employment and incomes but also pushes up house prices and electricity prices. The result frames data centers as a two‑sided local development tool: they bring investment and jobs but create distributional and infrastructure costs. — This reframes debates about data‑center siting from abstract economic development talk to a concrete local tradeoff policymakers must weigh — jobs versus higher utility and housing costs.