[zarzavat]

Ultimately houses are built in the way that works for the region they're built in.

Europe has few trees and few earthquakes (outside of Romania, Italy, etc). Masonry houses make sense.

In California unreinforced masonry is illegal and trees are plentiful. Making houses out of sticks is rational even if it's unsightly.

Those asphalt roofs though...

[ragall]

It's not the unavailability of trees. European countries have wisely decides that cities built of wooden houses are prone to massive fires. USians haven't learned that lesson and the Los Angeles fire isn't going to be the last one.

[retired]

A yes, the wise Europeans like the Dutch who have homes in Amsterdam that are sinking into the ground due to rotting wooden beams sinking in swamp ground and homes in Groningen with cracks all over due to the earthquakes that came with pumping gas out of the ground.

Or the dozens of structures in Italy that came crashing down, like the various bridges over the past twenty years (250 bridge collapse events in Italy between January 2000 and July 2025).

Yes us Europeans are indeed superior and we never pick the wrong building material ever.