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

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/