Stereotypes would have you believe that the Appalachian region is home to nothing other than trees, coalmines, and inbred banjo players. Google’s not buying into those stereotypes, however, and more details are emerging about the search engine giant’s plans to open a server farm in Lenoir, North Carolina.
The move should bring quite a lot of money to the area, in addition to (a minimum of) 250 job openings. There are serious concerns over the incentives that were used to lure Google in, but the locals, according to an article in the News-Topic, are generally pleased with the deal.
Lane Bailey, Lenoir’s city manager, seemed to think the arrangement was more than fair. “The incentives are large,” he said, “but the net (tax revenue) number for the city is also very large.”
A real estate agent saw another benefit to the search engine company’s impending presence. “We can attribute several of our sales recently to Google,” stated Steve Lambrechts. “I think there has been a tremendous amount of interest in investing in Caldwell County.”
To continue the trend of “personal” stories, The New York Times even dedicated an entire article to how “Google Is Reviving Hopes for Ex-Furniture makers.” The same piece implies that the Lenoir farm is just the beginning: “Google is already considering two sites in South Carolina for similar facilities,” it continued, mentioning that “Google will not reveal how many server farms it has or intends to build . . . .”
Those farms could bring a lot of cash to local economies. If they’re built in Appalachia, they might do the region the added service of dispelling some misbegotten stereotypes.
