[jokermatt999]

Somewhat. Trees and other plants can be replanted via saplings and bonemeal, cobble can be made with a simple cobblestone generator, and water is extremely easy to make an infinite spring for. The more rare elements are things like glowstone, iron, gold, diamond, obsidian, and lava. If you aren't near a desert, beaches sometimes will be strip mined for sand, but that's it.

I think the spreading apart generally has less to do with resources and more to do with personal space. You don't want your awesome house in your modern style to be next to your neighbor's medieval castle. It just looks weird. People do tend to have their own mines (at least in my experience), but that's less of a reason to spread apart.