Post by APA Transportation Planning Division

Our latest podcast just dropped! Co-hosts Divya Gandhi and Em Hall, Ph.D., kick off our 2026 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 Manohar P., Industry Assistant Professor at the NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP), whose work sits at the intersection of community data science, environmental justice, and AI’s hidden physical footprint. Data centers are the backbone of our digital lives, but they are only beginning to appear in planning conversations, the way a highway or transit line would. Manny argues they should. These facilities consume enormous quantities of land, power, water, and transportation access, and the communities that host them often bear the environmental consequences with little say in the process. Drawing on his groundbreaking community data science research in Baton Rouge and his interdisciplinary data center impact project at NYU—the “Weight of the Cloud”—Manny walks us through what transportation planners need to understand about AI infrastructure, and why the questions we ask right now will shape who benefits from the next wave of digital development. Listen now! https://lnkd.in/eKuAhRJR