alt Hacker NewsWhat are we betting that the Americans rebuild in wood again? It seems like they never learn. We had a single city fire like this 500 years ago and since then we haven’t… because we built the city back in brick instead of wood.
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ohazi • yesterday at 6:14 AM
Earthquakes.
Options are wood again, or steel and concrete.
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Americans used to build cities with brick and masonry. They were repeatedly destroyed by strong earthquakes, as would happen to your city if subject to similarly severe earthquakes. Americans paid for that lesson in blood.
European houses are not designed to withstand American disasters. A brick house that can survive a M8.5 earthquake, which is the safety standard where I live, will be almost purely steel structurally and very expensive to build. The brick would be decorative, which can be (and is) done on a wood frame.