YIMBY has its limits. We all need to start looking at policies that dis-incentivize keeping empty units as speculative investments.

That was certainly our experience here.

"Wellington's mid-rise buildings worst affected by earthquake" https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...

NB, the defence headquarters building, and the statistics building mentioned in the article have since been demolished.

That's not a real excuse. Tokyo is crisscrossed with fault-lines and they manage to build to quake code --the proof being all the healthy buildings despite frequent quakes.

Berkeley is just putting up excuses.

I thought buildings can be reinforced. How does Tokyo manage it's buildings?

The breakpoints have more to do with other parts of building codes. Wood framing is only strong enough to support three floors (unless you use cross laminated timber, which is a relatively new construction technology). Furthermore there are increasing requirements for fire suppression and accessibility as you add height. The breakpoints are basically either 2-floor duplex through quadplex that don't need elevators, or putting three floors of wood-framed apartments over a concrete or steel podium that contains commercial space and parking. Podium construction basically explains why so many 4 and 5 floor buildings get put up - it's significantly cheaper than the more expensive material required to make stuff strong enough for taller buildings.