I feel like datacenters should pay some kind of tax to offset the troubles they cause to locals like water usage, electricity price hikes, pollution. Why not build those datacenters far away from communities though?
Because datacenters are heavily reliant on electric and water utilities. Sufficient quantities of both are usually only possible in heavily populated areas with robust utility infrastructure.
I feel like datacenters should pay some kind of tax to offset the troubles they cause to locals like water usage, electricity price hikes, pollution. Why not build those datacenters far away from communities though?
Because datacenters are heavily reliant on electric and water utilities. Sufficient quantities of both are usually only possible in heavily populated areas with robust utility infrastructure.