But Nelson, 93, now worries those stars may become harder to see in his hometown of Abbott, Texas. In a recent social media<\/a> post, he warned that a proposed \u201cloud, water thieving, light polluting data center\u201d threatens his rural community.<\/p>\n \t\t \n\t\t\tDownload the Straight Arrow app today to get the stories that matter free from manipulation, bias or agenda.\u2122\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tPoint phone camera here\t\t<\/p>\n Nelson looked up into the expansive Texas sky, wondering what data centers could obscure. Economists Dany Bahar<\/a>, a professor at Brown University, and Greg C. Wright<\/a>, a professor at the University of California, Merced, reversed the view. They looked down from space, using satellite images to study whether data centers reshape the communities below.<\/p>\n Their findings<\/a>, based on satellite imagery and economic data from nearly 800 facilities nationwide, reinforce a growing body of research showing that data centers can promise an economic boom but deliver little to no growth beyond their gates.\u00a0<\/p>\n As data centers multiply across the country \u2014 and the resistance against them mounts\u00a0 \u2014 researchers see a growing divide between the communities that profit and those that bear the costs of powering the artificial intelligence economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n A \u2018bright dot\u2019 that doesn\u2019t spread<\/p>\n \u201cWhen a data center comes in, from the satellite view, you see a massive increase in nighttime light output,\u201d Wright told Straight Arrow. \u201cBut it\u2019s a localized dot. It doesn\u2019t spread.\u201d<\/p>\n That matters because economists can use nighttime light as a proxy for economic activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Massive construction sites shine under floodlights. Cars and trucks stream in and out, and workers fill hotels and restaurants, brightening the surroundings.\u00a0<\/p>\n Large manufacturing plants can generate widespread economic ripples by employing thousands of people and attracting suppliers, service businesses and new residents. Intel, for example, employs nearly 10,000 people at its sprawling semiconductor manufacturing complex in Chandler, Arizona.\u00a0<\/p>\n In those instances, satellite imagery may show an initial dot of light at the construction site before, as Wright put it, \u201cyou see the larger community light up over time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Data centers work differently. After construction ends, they employ relatively few on-site workers, buy most supplies from regional or national vendors and deliver their products digitally, without needing new roads or other transportation infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n From space, Wright said, \u201cyou see a bright dot,\u201d followed by little change in the surrounding lights.<\/p>\n The images Wright shared with Straight Arrow suggest that the facilities powering our digital lives generate relatively little economic activity in the communities around them.<\/p>\n Few local jobs\u00a0<\/p>\n Large data centers contain billions of dollars worth of servers and equipment, but they require relatively few workers to keep them running. As a result, they provide only a modest bump in local jobs and wages.<\/p>\n Mayors across the country told Straight Arrow<\/a> they either could not provide specific job figures or agreed that the number is relatively small. For example, in De Soto, Kansas, a 7,000-person town outside Kansas City, Mayor Rick Walker said data centers are expected to bring just 150 to 200 jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bayar and Wright found<\/a> that counties landing their first large data center see total private employment rise by 4% to 5% over five to six years. Average wages rise by 3% to 4% for both existing workers and new hires.<\/p>\n A separate 2026 working paper<\/a> by Georgia Tech researchers Daniel Yue and Yiyang Zeng found that after a data center opens, county employment rises by about 3.5%, wages by 5%, the number of businesses by nearly 5%, and household income by about 2%.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those gains were small relative to the size of the investment and unevenly distributed. Metro areas capture more of the benefits than rural communities, the researchers found.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wright added that data center jobs often go to workers outside the community, especially in rural areas, because building and operating the centers require specialized skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not hiring the local electricians to run them,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mixed effects on housing<\/p>\n Research has not found a consistent effect of data centers on local housing prices, and the measured impacts are generally modest.\u00a0<\/p>\n Baher and Wright\u2019s research found no significant increase in home prices, but suggested that rents could increase 2% to 5% during a data center\u2019s construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n A separate George Mason University analysis found that homes near Northern Virginia data centers tended to sell for more. But the results may reflect the roads, utilities, airports and employers that attracted both data centers and homebuyers. The study did not establish that data centers caused the higher prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts said data centers can also have the reverse impact: Their constant hum, years of construction and unsightly appearance can lower nearby home values.<\/p>\n Yet data centers are rarely built on land that would otherwise be used for housing, said Howard Berry<\/a>, principal and director of data center solutions at Avison Young, a commercial real estate firm.<\/p>\n \u201cFor large-scale data centers, you want to be near high voltage electrical infrastructure,\u201d Berry told Straight Arrow, \u201cwhich is not where people want to live.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Avison Young research, sparsely populated, energy-abundant West Texas now has the fastest rate of data center growth in the country.<\/p>\n Who pays, and who benefits<\/p>\n How data centers affect residents\u2019 cost of living and quality of life largely depends on the state, the utility system and the project, experts said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe variability of experience,\u201d said Michael Hicks<\/a>, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, \u201cis the story.\u201d<\/p>\n A data center that pays its full property taxes, covers the cost of new electricity and water infrastructure, and buffers nearby homes from noise and emissions could leave residents significantly better off, Hicks told Straight Arrow.<\/p>\n In best-case scenarios, tax revenue from data centers can help fund local schools and other public services while reducing the tax burden on residents.<\/p>\n Loudoun County, Virginia, home to one of the world\u2019s largest concentrations of data centers, says<\/a> the industry generates nearly half of the county\u2019s property tax revenue. The windfall has helped the county lower residential real estate taxes by 38% since 2010. The owner of a median-priced home, Hicks said, now saves more than $3,000 a year in property taxes.<\/p>\n Richland Parish, Louisiana, is collecting so much in taxes from a Meta<\/a> data center project that the school system was able to award teachers bonuses as high as $50,000.<\/p>\n On the flip side, data centers that receive large tax breaks, shift energy and infrastructure costs to utility customers, and fail to control noise and emissions can leave residents worse off, experts said.<\/p>\n One large facility can use as much electricity as roughly 80,000 homes, according to a recent Georgia Tech study<\/a>. In areas where the researchers could cleanly measure price effects, electricity prices rose by about 5% after a data center entered.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other recent studies have found no increase and, in some cases, modest decreases in residential electricity prices. The effects depend heavily on available power capacity, utility regulation and whether developers and AI companies cover the costs of new power plants and transmission lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n Concern about rising energy costs is among the reasons more than 7 in 10 Americans said they oppose building an AI data center in their area, according to a Gallup poll<\/a> published in May. Respondents also cited environmental, cost-of-living and quality-of-life concerns as the industry expands at a dizzying pace.<\/p>\n Straight Arrow asked the Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing the data center industry, how these facilities impact local communities, including their effects on housing and other costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"QR](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/app-download-block-qr-code.png\")
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Construction work continues on Oracle and OpenAI\u2019s Stargate data center campus in Abilene, Texas. (Photo courtesy OpenAI)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2161850644.jpg\")
An Amazon Web Services data center is situated near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Virginia. (Photo by Nathan Howard\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n