Rural North Carolina Experiences Data Center Boom

1sockchuck writes "Rural counties in western North Carolina have hit the data center trifecta, landing major projects from Google, Apple and Facebook. These marquee tech companies will invest more than $2 billion in small towns like Forest City, Kings Mountain and Maiden, a town of just 3,300 residents. How did western North Carolina become a tech hub? Aggressive tax incentives and an abundant supply of cheap power, a legacy of the textile mills that once thrived in the region, which narrowly missed winning a $499 million Microsoft data center project that ended up in Virginia."

Comments

Isn't it a bit hot there?

[commodore64_love]

I thought Google and the rest were looking for cool zones like Western New York and upper New England. The air conditioning bill in Carolina will be lower than California, but not by much.

I wonder if Western NC and VA residents will still be stuck on dialup, or if they'll finally get an upgrade since they are so close to the data stores?

Hey wow, this is true, I live here.

[Chitlenz]

It's been strange to see this happen. We live right in the center of all this (near Winston-Salem, apple is 45 minutes south, and google is 20 minutes west) and I have to say, these places are not subtle. These places are HUGE. I think the Elkin/Google installation is like 250 acres, which is silly huge. It makes sense, land out here is cheap but you are still 5 hours from DC which in itself is priceless for corporations (the big ones). Add in tax breaks, an evolving biotech industry (like us... we hope!), and lots of geeks near-local (the triangle with IBM/Glaxo/Redhat/Epic Games/Etc. is 2 hours east) and it seems obvious. The nice part for people who live here is that bandwidth is really really good in order to feed all these guys. REALLY good :)

Re:Hey wow, this is true, I live here.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The article was light on details, but the reason why companies typically do this is because the states hand out idiotically huge tax incentives that there's no way will ever be paid off by the presence of the company.

I've never heard of them actually paying for the federal taxes, just agreeing to not charge all the normal taxes the state does. So how does the state or locality have to pay off anything to break even? Even if they charge no taxes at all, the presence of the company will bring in income tax, sales tax from employees and all the stuff they buy and all the temporary construction workers in the area.

By the time the jobs would be around for long enough to finally start to break even, it's been long enough that the companies have started looking around for who's going to offer the best tax incentives for them to either upgrade their facilities to stay or move.

I still don't see this "break even" you're talking about. Jobs come in for a while. It's doubtful any of these companies are going to move these data centers ever, as they are huge investments. They might not expand them if they get a better deal elsewhere, but even if they did close one, they'd sell it off and another company would open a datacenter there. Nobody just shutters a billion dollar datacenter and lets it sit empty.

it's almost certainly about nothing other than getting ridiculous handouts given by desperate leaders in order to make them look good at any cost to their constituents. See also sports team stadiums.

I've certainly seen some crazy things with stadiums, like subsidies, but then those stadiums often bring a lot of money into a community as well. I guess I'd just have to see some real hard numbers on the situation before I dismiss this as a political stunt that harms their constituency. I read an article or two on most of these and all I saw were tax breaks with a bunch of conditions (healthcare for employees, move into one of several very poor areas, etc.). As far as I an tell, it's the state giving up tax revenue they would not get anyway if these companies chose another location.

Re:Hey wow, this is true, I live here.

[Steauengeglase]

Historically NC has been called, the vale of humility between two mountains of conceit (SC/VA). I'll admit they have their share of rednecks and old boys, but that state is a hell of a lot more progressive than the adjacent areas. It is a shame that they automatically get lumped into cousin-fucker stereotypes, because they have tried really hard while their neighbors wallow in their own shit, jump for handouts and fight tooth and nail to stay in the past. I say this as a South Carolinian.

Re:Jobs

[sshirley]

I went to university at Western Carolina University and we typically had 30+ students in the CS program. UNC Asheville has about the same. There are also a number of regional community colleges with degrees in IT. There are plenty of educated people in the area who want to stay around home and work there. I am from New England but went to school there. Back then (1999) there was a huge dearth of IT jobs in the area. If something like this had happened then, I'd probably still be there happily.

Re:Jobs

[jamesoutlaw]

Rural life has a lot more to offer than "country music" and "small bars".

Besides, Forest City is a little over an hour from Charlotte-
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Charlotte,+NC&daddr=Forest+City,+NC&hl=en&geocode=Fc-FGQIdiW4u-ymBGjj8xB9UiDFk0UO_5lBGiA%3BFXsnGwIdcdYe-ymL-Li2eUBXiDEcD-cexdHc0Q&gl=us&mra=ls&sll=35.330812,-81.864624&sspn=3.136834,3.66394&ie=UTF8&z=9

Kings Mountain is a little over 30 minutes frmo Charlotte:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=kings+mountain,+NC&daddr=Charlotte,+NC&hl=en&geocode=FU7MGQId9tQm-yl3b2jZZN1WiDHoaxOciHBonA%3BFc-FGQIdiW4u-ymBGjj8xB9UiDFk0UO_5lBGiA&gl=us&mra=ls&sll=35.289595,-81.602645&sspn=0.784656,0.915985&ie=UTF8&ll=35.256834,-81.088715&spn=0.784971,0.915985&z=10

and Maiden is about an hour away
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Maiden,+NC&daddr=Charlotte,+NC&hl=en&geocode=FYnXHgIdnc4o-ymH5GR5yzRRiDFUcW6pZdAArw%3BFc-FGQIdiW4u-ymBGjj8xB9UiDFk0UO_5lBGiA&gl=us&mra=ls&sll=35.256834,-81.090088&sspn=0.784971,0.914612&ie=UTF8&z=11

These places are hardly remote and isolated. There will be plenty of people who will be willing to take the jobs offered in these places (and who will appreciate the low cost of living and the proximity to a larger city).

Re:Kinda weird seeing these towns on /.

[oldspewey]

Same basic news stories - except you'll be reading about how a Linux nerd escaped from a nearby data centre, causing a ruckus as local residents stepped out of their homes to gawk at the delicate, pasty white skin.

acres of forested property...

[Junta]

You can buy/build a house on acres of wooded property. Private, low maintenance, no HOA living.

Horrible residential internet though.

I frequent those areas and its some of the most awesome living. Drawing talent away from RTP doesn't seem infeasible.

Re:Jobs

[cayenne8]

"I wonder how hard it'll be to find employees in those areas. I doubt there's a glut of high tech workers looking for jobs in those rural areas and if I were a knowledgeable tech worker I wouldn't really want to move to such a rural area... If you're not into country music and you prefer dance clubs over small bars you would *not* want to move to those areas!"

Maybe not extremely young workers...but perhaps slightly older people, who are wanting to buy a house, and perhaps raise a family?

Places like this can be DIRT cheap to live. Cheap to buy property and build a home, and actually have some land for it to sit on.

Even if you do get a bit less of a bill rate than you would, say on the west coast...with the extremely LOW cost of living, lower taxes, etc, you can really sock some money away. Sure, it will be a bit different lifestyle, but slowing down a bit, getting out of all of the air polution, and actually being able to see some stars at night....well, sometimes, that ain't all bad.

:)

Re:Jobless Recovery??

[Nidi62]

Even if they do import people from other areas in the country, the locals will still see an employment boom. Housing construction, road improvements, restaurants, retail centers, need for more teachers, etc. I have family that lives on the other side of the Appalachians in Tennessee, so I've seen this area of NC a lot. In a lot of areas of western NC, especially up in the mountains, there is nothing. And what there is can be few and far between. This will be a boon not only to the towns they are built by, but all the surrounding towns as well. A lot of these support jobs may not pay much, but it's a lot better than some of the options available there now.

As a side note, I've seen inner city Atlanta and some of the worst areas in that town, and I've seen back in the mountains in the southern Appalachians. If you think inner cities are poverty, you haven't seen anything until you go into the mountains.

Re:Jobs

[Hasai]

I'm with you on that. I could have been in Silicon Valley, but I opted for the Midwest for less than half the pay. End result: Life in a quiet town, twenty-minute commutes, low taxes, plenty of money left over at the end of the month, and a house paid-off in ten years that's three times the square footage of anything I could have possibly been able to afford in the Valley. God bless the "fly-over" states.

Re:Jobs

[NatasRevol]

Hope you don't have kids.

Education was the reason I moved from rural North Carolina. They are the reason for No Child Left Behind. The teachers help push the kids up and over that very low bar just to get their bonuses. I've seen second graders that couldn't read their math problems.

Well, that and all the Nascar rednecks. Everyone's password is nascar7, nascar34 whatever number their favorite driver is.