From Data Centers to City Streets: Rethinking Infrastructure in a Digital Age

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges transportation planners face with the emergence of data centers as a new type of infrastructure.

Co-hosts Divya Gandhi and Em Hall continue the Critical Conversations in Transportation Planning series with a conversation that challenges transportation planners to reckon with a new kind of infrastructure: the data center. Recorded at the 2026 National Planning Conference in Detroit, this episode features Manny Patole, Industry Assistant Professor at NYU’s Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP), whose work sits at the intersection of community data science, environmental justice, and AI’s hidden physical footprint. Episode URL: https://www.planning.org/podcast/from-data-centers-to-city-streets-rethinking-infrastructure-in-a-digital-age/

People in this episode

Hosts: Divya Gandhi, Em Hall

Guest: Manny Patole

Topics covered

• transportation planning
• infrastructure
• data centers
• community data science
• environmental justice
• AI

Keywords

• transportation
• data centers
• infrastructure
• environmental justice
• community data science
• AI
• urban planning

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NYU’s Center for Urban Science + Progress

Places: Detroit

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