The Knox Community High School auditorium in Starke County, Indiana packed with hundreds of people last December. The Planning Commission had already voted unanimously to recommend a moratorium on hyperscale data centers—anything over 5,000 square feet. The County Commissioners were hearing public comment before their vote.

Not one person spoke in favor of data centers during the two-hour meeting. Not one.

The commissioners voted unanimously for a 12-month moratorium. They're calling it time to study long-term impacts and update zoning rules. Twelve months to figure out what saying yes would actually cost before they're locked into something they can't undo.

Chicago-based Abei Energy wanted to rezone agricultural land to industrial for their data center project. Amazon's been scouting 2.4 gigawatts of data center capacity across seven counties in Northwest Indiana. Shopping around. Looking for the place that'll give them the best deal, which usually means the place desperate enough to accept the worst terms.

The economic development pitch is always the same: data centers generate "significant amounts of tax revenue" while using few government services. Clean industry. High-tech jobs. Economic transformation.

Indiana's data center subsidy doesn't require job creation. Not one job. Companies could build the facility with robots and still get the tax breaks. Looks like an oversight until you realize it's the whole point.

At the December meeting, people kept asking the same question: Why can't these data centers go in the shuttered steel mills and factories from Whiting to Michigan City? Why does it have to be farmland? Nobody had a good answer. The land's cheaper out here, probably. Fewer regulations. Easier to get what they want. That's how it works—they scout until they find the place that'll say yes to everything.

I've watched this pattern enough times to recognize it. The company shows up with promises. Local officials get excited about tax revenue and jobs. Residents ask questions nobody wants to answer. The deal gets done anyway because saying no feels like turning down economic development. Then five years later you're stuck with whatever you accepted.

Over in St. Joseph County, they just voted down a $13 billion data center near New Carlisle after a marathon meeting that ended at 4 a.m. Would've been the third data center in the county. The Area Plan Commission voted 7-0 against it. The County Council voted 7-2 to reject the rezoning. Largest project investment in Indiana state history, they said. Turned it down anyway.

They've already got Amazon's $11 billion data center under construction. General Motors. Microsoft that hasn't started yet. Councilman Joe Thomas asked the obvious question: "Let's just wait until we see that the dust settles."

Let's see what we actually got from the first ones before we accept more. Imagine that.

Watching other places teaches you about data center jobs: Most facilities employ 100-200 people regardless of size. You get 1,500 construction jobs and 100 operational jobs. Economic benefits decline substantially after construction ends. University of Michigan researchers found data centers "do not bring high-paying tech jobs" to local communities.

The New York Times reported that electrical jobs at data centers get filled by workers traveling across the country from project to project. After reviewing several subsidy agreements, Good Jobs First found none stipulating local hiring. Amazon promised 1,000 jobs in Indiana, but the actual subsidy agreement stipulates only 400 Amazon jobs—the remaining 600 will be subcontractor employees. Google's data center employees get hired through a specialized temp agency for up to two years only.

Give up farmland for that? Accept higher energy costs for that? Watch the grid get strained for 100 permanent jobs that might not even go to locals? Getting played is what that is.

Communities saying no:

• At least eight Georgia municipalities passed data center moratoriums in 2025
• Chandler, Arizona unanimously rejected a 422,000-square-foot data center despite personal lobbying by former Senator Kyrsten Sinema
• Leesburg, Indiana refused to rezone 554 acres for industrial use
• Nearly 200 community groups across more than two dozen states are now actively opposing data center projects
• Local opposition blocked or delayed $98 billion in projects in Q2 2025 alone

People are figuring it out.

Starke County's using its 12-month moratorium to ask questions nobody wants to answer. Like why farmland instead of abandoned factories. Like why no local hiring requirements. Like why Indiana gives tax breaks without requiring job creation. Like what happens to our energy costs when these facilities need power equivalent to small cities. Like who actually benefits from this arrangement besides the company getting the subsidies.

The commissioners gave us a year to figure out the whole story before we're committed to something we can't undo. We've got farmland that's been worked for generations. We've got a community that functions. We've got something to protect.

Maybe we're wrong. Maybe we're turning down economic development that would've worked out. Maybe in five years we'll regret saying no.

But we've seen enough subsidy agreements with no local hiring requirements, enough promises of jobs that turn out to be 100 instead of 1,000, enough construction booms that bust, enough companies shopping around seven counties looking for the place desperate enough to accept the worst deal, to know that "significant tax revenue while using few government services" isn't the whole story.

We're taking a year to find out what the whole story is. Seemed like the smart move.