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Comment by unglaublich | Hacker News Reader

> Europe is bigger than where you live. Scandinavia builds a lot with wood. OP is likely aware of such anecdotes.

Masonry is popular in (central and southern) Europe because forests were already cut down centuries ago so lumber prices are generally high. The abundance of lumber in Scandinavia and previously in N.A. thus explains why wooden structures are/were popular there.

So, the hypothesis that N.A. will build more with masonry and less with lumber is an interesting one.

http://masonrydesign.blogspot.com/2014/01/european-construct...

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Where I live (Texas), the alternative to wood is steel. Finding crews & builders to do custom steel framed houses is harder. Although, the price difference is such that it might make sense, now.

Wood is still extremely common here in North America. Much of our construction lumber comes from "tree farms", intentionally planted forests growing trees as a crop.

Where I grew up there were more "tree farms" than housing. Anyone who says housing is expensive because land is finite hasn't driven more than an hour out of the city.

Housing is expensive because land where people want to live and where jobs are is finite.

That combined with zoning and other land use restrictions preventing larger buildings that can have more housing.

I don't know why this was downvoted. I live in a fairly developed suburb outside DC and when I get on top of my building all I see for miles outside of the tiny mall I live in are trees, parking lots, and max 2 story (usually 1) buildings. Most of the US is even less dense than this and it's largely due to ridiculous zoning.

The zoning didn't come from nowhere. It's no secret the Federal, State, and Local governments encourage home ownership through policies, programs, and specific tax benefits. It then logically follows that single family homes are the golden standard in America. Which then logically follows that single family homes are built a lot (which do require much space). It then logically follows that the people who move into single family homes want single family home neighbors, not dense apartment or housing structures, as evidenced by the zoning laws which are typically passed at city councils with vocal citizen participation. Read into other reasons or causes that surround those facts (NIMBYism, racism, whatever-ism), but these are the basics. I also would expect any group of people to act similar fashion, regardless of demographics or other superficial characteristics. People are protective of their neighborhoods.

So that is to say, the situation we have arrived at, however unfortunate, is entirely unsurprising, and not that hard to figure out why it is so.

I suppose the way old European cities are constructed, with a lot of smaller houses right next to each other and narrow roads, also makes them a much larger fire hazard when made of wood compared to the spaced-out suburban way of building.

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