I wonder if the alternative to wood is just... wood. Anecdotal, but I've been to Finnland last year and I couldn't help but see a correlation between (a) big s

I wonder if the alternative to wood is just... wood. Anecdotal, but I've been to Finnland last year and I couldn't help but see a correlation between (a) big swaths of land are covered in trees and (b) a lot of housing is build with wood. It's honestly somewhat impressive to see huge structural elements build from what is basically a single glue-up. So I assume that it's not actually about "wood stronger than steel", but more about (local) availability and/or logistics.