this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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Right. Buildings were mostly wood and mud in Europe until the 18th Century. By then, cities became so dense that big fires were extremely deadly. Little by little people started building in stone, then bricks and now reinforced concrete.
It didn't really have anything to do with fires. Pretty much every hardwood forest was cut down in Europe and any remaining were protected so they could be used to build ships.
America was colonized late enough that it never really became an issue.
Yeah exactly they basically stripped their continent bare of lumber during that period and it's all at the bottom of the ocean now. The materials used are just as much determined by economic conditions as practicality.