Data Centers Will Save NOVA Economy From The Federal Purge

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM is frequently coopted by interest groups nowadays. It’s disappointing how the users have changed and makes the site much less useful.

+1

Astroturfing sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate data centers and don't want one near my house. However, data centers seem like the only thing that will somewhat protect Northern Virginia from the massive wave of unemployment and economic decline due to a rapid decrease in the size of the federal workforce. My property rate in Loudoun county is going to decline around 7% this year and the county is projected to pull in close to a billion dollars in tax revenue from data centers in FY 2026. Loudoun and PWC seem to be the most insulated from this decline, but Fairfax will get some spillover employment benefits tax revenue from the data center boom. Unfortunately, Maryland and DC will not be as lucky and they will turn into the Detroit of the East Coast. Arlington is also going to be in very bad shape, but at least they have Amazon and some other large corporations.

They don't really employ very many people.

[Anonymous]

Who in the world got the idea that data centers employ lots of people? It's a huge building but it's not a factory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I don’t think you realize how few people are actually employed at data centers

Mostly blue collar workers. Yuck, right?

Actually, the people hired to run and maintain the DCs are highly skilled. Even if they weren’t, the DCs don’t need a lot of workers to function. It’s usually less than 50 per shift. These facilities are mostly lights out.

The construction workers are good for the region but they are not permanent unless we think they will continue to build or renovate DCs on a permanent basis.

Yeah, all 5 of them.

I’m in and out of data centers all the time. Take a look at the size of the average data center parking lot. There’s maybe a few dozen parking spaces. Ever been inside one? Two restrooms on opposite sides of the building. A couple muti-use rooms, the office for the engineers, MAYBE a vending machine. The rest is all rack space. Acres of rack space.


Data centers are almost totally devoid of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate data centers and don't want one near my house. However, data centers seem like the only thing that will somewhat protect Northern Virginia from the massive wave of unemployment and economic decline due to a rapid decrease in the size of the federal workforce. My property rate in Loudoun county is going to decline around 7% this year and the county is projected to pull in close to a billion dollars in tax revenue from data centers in FY 2026. Loudoun and PWC seem to be the most insulated from this decline, but Fairfax will get some spillover employment benefits tax revenue from the data center boom. Unfortunately, Maryland and DC will not be as lucky and they will turn into the Detroit of the East Coast. Arlington is also going to be in very bad shape, but at least they have Amazon and some other large corporations.

I doubt Trump and Musk will relocate the Pentagon, although staffing levels will be much reduced. Even with a commercial real estate slump, Arlington should be okay with Amazon, the Pentagon, various other HQ’s like Nestle, etc. It also benefits from being close to the city’s monumental core with its prized cultural institutions.

[Anonymous]

DOD has 3.2 million employees, and an $850 billion budget. The next largest is Homeland Security with 250K employees and a $100 billion budget.

Way, way down the list -- Dept of Education has about 4000 employees and CFPB has about 2000.

If Musk doesn't do anything serious to trim the size of our defense budget, then it will be even more obvious that all of his talk of "efficiency" was a lie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate data centers and don't want one near my house. However, data centers seem like the only thing that will somewhat protect Northern Virginia from the massive wave of unemployment and economic decline due to a rapid decrease in the size of the federal workforce. My property rate in Loudoun county is going to decline around 7% this year and the county is projected to pull in close to a billion dollars in tax revenue from data centers in FY 2026. Loudoun and PWC seem to be the most insulated from this decline, but Fairfax will get some spillover employment benefits tax revenue from the data center boom. Unfortunately, Maryland and DC will not be as lucky and they will turn into the Detroit of the East Coast. Arlington is also going to be in very bad shape, but at least they have Amazon and some other large corporations.

With the slashing of fed contracts and fed government functions, there won't be as much demand for data centers, unless Elon and Thiel's tech fascism dream of replacing humans with garbage AI comes true.

[Anonymous]

Its not going to help as much as you think as they don't employ huge numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Revenue from a data center won't help a dual-fed family that becomes unemployed due to DOGE and can't afford their 6% mortgage.

Sorry, no empathy when rich people over spend and don't think this can happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Revenue from a data center won't help a dual-fed family that becomes unemployed due to DOGE and can't afford their 6% mortgage.

Sorry, no empathy when rich people over spend and don't think this can happen.

Speaking of garbage.

[Anonymous]

As others have noted. Short term construction jobs and a hand full of people to run basically a light out operation and security to protect the assets. Those are the jobs associated with data centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure it will create some jobs.

But the data centers are going to drive up the price of electricity in NoVA since the region doesn't have enough power generation capacity. So if you're a struggling former Fed who doesn't work at a data center, your bills will be going up to underwrite them.

+1 and everything else stated.

- It doesn't require a lot of people
- the people it mostly does require are not the type of people being fired by DOGE

[Anonymous]

They will drive down property values (hint: there is a constant humming noise emanating from them!), drive up cancer rates and will eventually require nuclear energy to power them.