Meanwhile, in the small town of Quincy, WA:

Sure. I think the key difference is that Quincy is a small town - an actual city of only six square miles, where all of the benefits of the increased tax revenue was certain to provide an immediate and tangible benefit to the few thousand residents who lived there. A massive increase in the tax base shared among a small number of people, including all of the people who live near the data-centers. A win-win. Whatever adverse impacts might come from living in the immediate vicinity of the facility get dwarfed by the benefits you receive.

Meanwhile, though, the article you cited at the top of the thread has a completely different situation. There, the affected neighborhood isn't an actual small city. Landover, MD is a neighborhood within the unincorporated Prince George's County - 500 square miles and a million residents. Proportionally, any given data center becomes a tiny fraction of the budget - and the benefits are vastly more likely to accrue to different people than the ones who actually end up being near the data centers.

In a large jurisdiction like that, most people in the immediate vicinity usually are personally better off with the empty lot than the data center. They get all of the downside and no upside.