Lumber is widely used in Nordic and other Northern European countries, precisely because they have lots of forests. It's most common in houses, but even apartment locks are being built from wood these days. Fire safety is not much of an issue if you do it right.
Using more wood would make a lot of sense, since it's essentially a long-term carbon sink. Concrete production on the other hand causes massive carbon emissions. After spending some time in a house with lumber from 1800s, I can only admire the quality and craftmanship.
>but even apartment locks are being built from wood these days.
Are the apartments traditional wood-framed or cross-laminated timber? CLT is an entirely different beast that performs more like concrete or heavy timber in fire. I would put them more in the category of composite material.
I think CLT are already popular in parts of Europe, but in NA they are quite rare. They are usually only for very premium apartments or government buildings. Most wooden multi-unit buildings in NA are built the same way as houses and are quite flimsy. Though in the past couple years they tried to mitigate it with heavy stuffing of sound insulation to make everything sound more solid. One major difference is you don't hear footsteps as much. Older wooden buildings are a nightmare if you are sensitive to noise.
Pre-war houses (middle/upper-class ones) in NA are also quite solid. The structural quality difference between pre-war and post-war houses are night and day.
Traditional wood frame, with lumber pressure treated with a fire retardant. They might have some CLT beams, but they're predominantly built out of pressure treated lumber and plywood. They're safe because they have sprinkler systems, building-wide fire alarms and redundant fire-resistant staircases.
Sound generally isn't an issue if you have polite neighbors, but if somebody upstairs is doing jumping jacks you'll definitely hear it.
Using more wood would make a lot of sense, since it's essentially a long-term carbon sink. Concrete production on the other hand causes massive carbon emissions. After spending some time in a house with lumber from 1800s, I can only admire the quality and craftmanship.