alt Hacker NewsComments like the last here irritate me. No, we all learn that wood is the only appropriate building material and the Salesforce tower in San Francisco required a whole forest of trees to construct.
The root comment is based on a very dated concept. Of course we can built earthquake resistant megastructures from steel and concrete. A lot of that building technology was created in California. It's either naive or willfully ignorant to think we can't solve this problem.
The issue with those materials is cost. Spread out, suburban design without density is expensive and wood frame construction is a great way to affordably build housing. Wood frame single family houses are not the problem - it's how we design our cities that's the problem.
Hy from Brazil... You know, a poor country.
We make single-level houses with a reinforced concrete structure, because it's cheap.
You know what isn't cheap? Wood. Wood is incredibly expensive to put into a shape, even if you are willing to cut forests down to get it.