Suburbs Bank on Data Centers

Affluent suburban jurisdictions can convert the data‑center boom into a local revenue strategy: Loudoun County now gets roughly half its tax receipts from data centers, funding roads, schools, and low homeowner taxes while hosting large industrial campuses in otherwise residential landscapes. The scale of national data‑center construction (about $425 billion in 2025) shows this is not an isolated phenomenon but a structural shift in where and how digital infrastructure is built. — This reframes local NIMBY fights as trade‑offs between visible land‑use costs and large fiscal/municipal benefits, with implications for permitting, energy grids, housing politics, and regional planning.