Technology Is Not Always the Answer

Pouring St. Louis’ investment strategy and civic imagination into the data center collection plate because the technocrat class has decided AI is our new personal savior is not vision. It's not even innovation. It's civic desperation covered in gold leaf and sold as salvation.

This feels like another round of civic dark-ages tithing: give more land, more power, more water, more tax advantages, more political deference, and somehow our odds of entering the economic kingdom of heaven will improve. St. Louis has heard versions of this sermon before. Decade after decade, residents have been asked to believe in the next big thing while basic city-building, neighborhood stability, infrastructure, maintenance, and quality of life are deferred into afterthoughts, resulting in an exodus in aeternum.

Data centers will not be this City's salvation: They are not a neighborhood strategy. They are not housing. They are not transit. They are not small business growth. They are not public safety, street repair, beautification, or population growth. They do not change centuries of inequities. They are energy-intensive, land-intensive, water-sensitive leeches that often produce far fewer long-term local jobs than the slimy sales pitch implies.

The current public temperament across the United States reflects a well-earned hatred of government incompetence, arrogance, and non-responsiveness at every level. That frustration is increasingly bipartisan, and so is the skepticism toward AI hype and data centers. People are asking basic, reasonable questions about devaluation of their homes/properties, electricity demand, water usage, grid strain, environmental impact, noise, land use, public incentives, and whether these projects improve daily life for surrounding residents.

If the City is serious about moving forward, data centers are not the vehicle to build momentum. They are another test of whether our tax-paid leadership can tell the difference between real public benefit and another expensive sermon from peculiar corporate oligarchs who think they are holier than thou.