Let’s Center Community in Data Centers
Data centers are coming. The question is how.
They sit on land. They rely on public infrastructure. They draw from energy and water systems. Their impacts are felt in the neighborhoods around them.
For communities that have lived through disinvestment, pollution, and exclusion from land-use decisions, these projects raise familiar questions. Who decides? Who benefits? Who carries the burden?
Join Just Communities Director Tsedey Betru for Let’s Center Community in Data Centers, a conversation about what people need before data-center decisions are made.
Richard Massey of Young, Gifted & Green will share the experience of Memphis, where people are organizing around rapid data-center development. Kaiya Murphy of the Partnership for Southern Equity will introduce a preview of PSE’s forthcoming Data Center Playbook.
This is not a conversation about whether technology is good or bad. It is a conversation about power. The people who live closest to a project should have the information, relationships, and authority to shape what happens in their community.
What we will talk about
– What data-center development can mean for land, power, water, health, and public resources
– What Memphis can teach us about community organizing and accountability
– Why race, place, and history matter in decisions about development
– Questions communities can bring forward before a project is approved
– Tools from PSE’s forthcoming Data Center Playbook
Meet the Faculty
Tsedey Betru
Tsedey is the Director of Just Communities at the Partnership for Southern Equity. Originally from Ethiopia, Tsedey’s experiences immigrating to the U.S. and growing up in Memphis, TN, have shaped and informed her 20-year career advancing racial equity in community and economic development.
She started her career as a community organizer for the National Voting Rights Institute and the 7th St. Community Improvement Initiative in Oakland, CA. After completing her graduate studies in urban policy analysis and nonprofit management, Tsedey worked at PolicyLink and at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in NYC before becoming the Vice President of Community LIFT in Memphis, TN.
More recently, she has moved into economic development and philanthropic advising, working as the Manager of Community Affairs & Strategic Initiatives for Invest Atlanta, as an economic development advisor to Memphis Mayor Wharton, and a philanthropic advisor to the Estee Lauder Charitable Foundation, Waverley Street Foundation, and Gates Foundation.
Tsedey currently serves on the City of Atlanta’s Urban Design Commission, the Atlanta BeltLine Public Arts Advisory, and raises funds for the African Diasporic Arts Museum of Atlanta.