You just don't see those buildings that did not survive. Survivorship bias. Another reason might be lack of engineering science. People did not now how thick w

You just don't see those buildings that did not survive. Survivorship bias. Another reason might be lack of engineering science. People did not now how thick wall should be, so they built them as thick as possible. Nowadays people prefer to build cheap structures which will work good enough for their needs and will have guaranteed lifetime of 50 years. Science made it possible.