But the real lesson of YIMBYism is the ability to think that local residents politically agitating against something they think constitutes a local negative externality, might need to get told to go to hell for the benefit of the rest of society, even if they're right about the thing being a negative externality for them.
In my California neighborhood right now, there are people complaining to our local city council representative about a certain planned housing development, that they think is a negative externality for them for various reasons. The city council person is interested in responding to the concerns of his constituents, and is also telling them that California state law limits what local governments can do to prevent these kinds of developments.
I am wholeheartedly in favor of that California law, much to the chagrin of my anti-housing neighbors. I would wholeheartedly be in favor of an analogous Texas law that tells anti-data-center local interests that their concerns are stupid, and they shouldn't have the power to prevent a corporation from constructing a data center near them, so that the rest of society can continue to benefit from using computer systems housed in data centers.
Y’all do vaguely understand how government works, right? Planning and zoning is a core function. This is hardly rocket science, except, I suppose, when your vibe-code shit start-up depends on building data centers in other folks’ backyards.
If an area is zoned for industrial and someone wants to build a datacenter there without variances I don't see why anyone should be able to say no. Same thing for building condos or single-family homes in areas zoned for those. There's almost always variances though which is why there is even an opportunity to say no.