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Comment by jessaustin | Hacker News Reader

Based on population one might expect 33 years. Would the additional factor of eleven really be expected from the fact that various developments occurred later? ISTM that the Chinese just really prefer concrete as a building material. It isn't as though all new construction in USA is concrete.

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China has access to far more information on architecture and technology in general than the US had in 1900, that would shrink the 33 years down a lot farther.

For houses, America is somewhat an outlier. Most of the world builds concrete houses and America uses lumber.

There is a trade-off between permanence and sustainability. Mostly, though, lumber construction is only feasible in areas with lower population densities.

Take note that about 20% of the country lives in Earthquake Country, where just about all residential dwellings tend to be built of wood.

Wood is a popular choice for smaller (1-3 story) residential buildings in areas that have large timber production and therefore cheapish timber. That's a minority of places, but in addition to the U.S., includes Canada, the Nordic countries, and Russia. It gets less practical for taller buildings, though, which is why the Finnish countryside has predominantly timber-framed buildings, but Helsinki doesn't.

Let's not forget Japan. They import lots of wood from Canada and most houses, temples are made of it. Turns out concrete is brittle, which isn't a great property to have during an earthquake. Wood is strong, light, and importantly, flexible.

That would be fascinating to augment this article. Take all the places that the Chinese have used concrete, look at alternative materials, then add those up in the U.S. and China as well.

That said they've obviously been investing at an outrageous rate since 2000 in modernizing themselves. The U.S. has started on that way before and without centralizing planning in the same way has done it more slowly over time (with a smaller population in 2015, let alone 1900. Important to realize the U.S. population has grown a lot over the past century).

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