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  • Stockholm's Wood City, Affordable Housing Wars in NJ, India’s Super Corridor, Waymo Says It’s Really Safe

Stockholm's Wood City, Affordable Housing Wars in NJ, India’s Super Corridor, Waymo Says It’s Really Safe

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Editorial Staff
October 06, 2025

 

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You Should Know

  • The Trump administration has canceled $7.6B in clean energy grants across 16 Democratic-leaning states and paused over $20B in NYC and Chicago infrastructure funding.

  • New U.S. tariffs on imported wood products were announced: 10% on lumber and 25% on furniture.

  • Wind energy generation in North America and Europe is often strongest in the fall. Summer is weaker due to high-pressure systems. Winter output varies as Atlantic storms boost generation but extreme cold can limit it.

  • Atlanta has the highest rate of corporate home ownership in the U.S., according to Georgia State University. Companies own over 30% of the region's single-family rental properties.

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The World’s Largest Wood City Rises in Stockholm

Stockholm is undertaking the world’s largest timber-based urban development, an ambitious project called Stockholm Wood City. Located in the Sickla district, the 250,000-square-meter development is envisioned as a blueprint for skylines built from wood rather than concrete and steel.

The project’s scale is striking. Once complete, it will provide 7,000 office spaces and 2,000 homes, alongside shops, restaurants, and community services. Construction begins this year, with first buildings ready by 2027 and full completion expected within a decade.

Stockholm Wood City highlights the benefits of mass timber construction. Mass timber refers to engineered wood products such as cross-laminated timber (CLT), glulam beams, and laminated veneer lumber (LVL), which can form load-bearing walls, floors, and structural frameworks. Unlike traditional stick-frame construction, these materials rival concrete and steel in strength and fire resistance.

The engineering of CLT, for instance, showcases simple but effective construction innovation. Thin layers of lumber (boards) are stacked in perpendicular directions, glued, and pressed together to form large panels. The cross-lamination increases rigidity and structural strength.

The environmental potential is substantial. A 2020 study by Aalto University found that if 80% of Europe’s new buildings were built with wood instead of concrete and steel, the region could offset nearly half of construction industry emissions. Wood not only produces fewer emissions during construction, but it also stores carbon, can be more easily disassembled for reuse, and requires lighter machinery, cutting energy needs.

In Sweden, where 70% of land is forested and strict reforestation laws have been in place since 1903, sourcing CLT locally is both feasible and sustainable. Nordic building codes also set some of the world’s highest safety standards. All Stockholm Wood City buildings will be equipped with sprinklers, and CLT’s natural charring at high temperatures creates a protective barrier that slows fire spread.

Skeptics point to higher costs—engineered wood can be about 10% more expensive than steel or concrete. But developer Atrium Ljungberg argues that faster assembly, quieter construction sites, and earlier tenant occupancy can offset those expenses.

If successful, Stockholm Wood City could become a global model for balancing growth, sustainability, and livability—building a new urban fabric from the forest.

Housing Wars in NJ: Can Towns Be Forced to Build Affordable Housing?

The world is closely watching New Jersey’s legal battle over affordable housing mandates. A recent court victory has reinforced the state’s reputation as one of the nation’s most aggressive enforcers of affordable housing obligations.

Mercer County Judge Robert Lougy issued an 81-page ruling dismissing a lawsuit filed by 27 municipalities—led by Montvale Mayor Mike Ghassali—that sought to overturn the state’s newest affordable housing law.

The law, signed by Governor Phil Murphy in 2024, represents the latest chapter in New Jersey’s decades-long experiment with court-driven housing policy. It builds directly on the state’s Mount Laurel doctrine, a series of landmark rulings beginning in the 1970s that established that municipalities have a constitutional obligation to provide their “fair share” of affordable housing. Unlike most states, where affordable housing policy is driven by legislation or administrative programs, New Jersey’s approach is court-enforced and constitutionally rooted—making it highly unusual in the U.S.

Under the new mandates, the state aims to add approximately 80,000 affordable homes over the next decade. Municipalities are generally responsible for about 150 units each, though the number varies depending on local capacity. For example, Montvale has been assigned 205 units.

Each of the 27 municipalities challenging the law contributed $20,000 in legal fees to the case. Their argument to date is that the new law exceeds what the Mount Laurel doctrine requires and that the mandates impose an unconstitutional, unfunded local mandate.

New Jersey’s model stands out nationally. While states like Massachusetts (through Chapter 40B) and California (through its Regional Housing Needs Allocation process) have affordable housing requirements, New Jersey’s Mount Laurel framework is unusual in that it stems from judicial interpretation of the state constitution. Courts have played an active role in enforcing compliance, forcing towns to rewrite zoning laws to accommodate low- and moderate-income households.

Officials from the 27 municipalities have vowed to appeal. They also have a parallel case in federal court challenging the law on constitutional grounds (e.g., equal protection), which continues separately.

Building India’s Super Corridor: Six States, One Spine, Billions in Trade

The Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the world. Put simply, an industrial corridor is a concentrated package of infrastructure investments designed to unlock large-scale economic growth in a specific region. Backed by $90 billion in planned investment, the DMIC aims to transform the 1,500-kilometer stretch between Delhi and Mumbai into a world-class hub for industry, logistics, and trade.

The corridor addresses one of India’s most persistent challenges: the high cost and inefficiency of moving goods. By integrating new expressways, ports, airports, and utility facilities, the corridor is designed to slash transport times and boost competitiveness. Container journeys that currently take 50 hours by train could fall to 17 hours, while shipments that require two weeks by road may be delivered in as little as 14 hours.

The scope of the DMIC is vast. Plans call for nine mega industrial zones, each spanning 200–250 square kilometers; a high-speed freight rail line; three new ports; six airports; a six-lane expressway; and a 4,000 MW power plant. Stretching from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Maharashtra, the 1,504-kilometer corridor will pass through six states—Uttar Pradesh, Delhi NCR, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra—linking India’s political capital with its financial capital.

At its core are two backbones: the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, a 1,506-kilometer high-speed freight railway already largely operational, and the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway, a 1,350-kilometer greenfield highway now partially open. When completed by 2029–30, the expressway will halve travel time between the two cities from 24 to 12 hours, while freight trains running at 100 km/h on the WDFC are expected to reduce logistics costs by up to 40%.

To support this infrastructure, the DMIC envisions 24 industrial nodes, each designed with advanced logistics hubs, modern utilities, and sustainable planning. The most prominent is the Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR) in Gujarat, planned to be twice the size of Delhi and six times the size of Shanghai.

Progress has been uneven but tangible. Several freight segments are operational, and states like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are already seeing industrial uptake. Expansion plans include adding Nashik and Nagpur to the second phase, with tenders worth $170 million floated for infrastructure near Dighi Port. Challenges around land acquisition, water availability, and interstate coordination remain, but the DMIC represents a bold step toward modernizing India’s industrial base and integrating it more deeply into global supply chains.

Waymo Insists It’s Safe, Publishes Latest Safety Data

There’s no shortage of headlines about self-driving car mishaps: a Waymo circling endlessly in a parking lot with a trapped rider, another going the wrong way, or a GM Cruise car dragging a pedestrian—all fueling public doubts.

To counter this skepticism, Waymo recently released new safety data showing its robotaxi fleet had logged 96 million miles as of June 2025. The results suggest a striking safety advantage: Waymo vehicles were 91% less likely to be involved in crashes causing serious injury compared with human drivers over the same distance.

The company also highlighted two other safety benchmarks. Waymo reported a 79% reduction in crashes with airbag deployments—a proxy for severe collisions—and an 80% reduction in injury-causing crashes of any severity relative to what human drivers would be expected to experience over the same distance.

That doesn’t mean incidents haven’t occurred. From February to August, Waymo reported 45 crashes to regulators. However, most were not caused by the vehicle’s self-driving systems. Twenty-four happened when the Waymo was stationary, while another seven involved being rear-ended. Three cases were linked to passengers opening doors into cyclists or scooters, and one unusual incident involved a wheel detachment.

Compared with rivals, Waymo’s record stands out. Tesla’s robotaxi program, operating only 10–20 vehicles in San Francisco and Austin, logged just 7,000 miles in its first month yet reported three crashes. Tesla’s broader “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” systems have also faced regulatory scrutiny after being linked to dozens of fatalities.

Still, skepticism remains. Waymo’s fleet consists of newer, meticulously maintained vehicles, and for now the company limits highway driving, where risks are higher. Meanwhile, U.S. road fatalities remain stubbornly high: in 2023, an estimated 40,901 people lost their lives in motor vehicle crashes, a rate of about 1.35 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. For Waymo to earn lasting public confidence, it must consistently surpass that baseline.

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