I hate this train of thought; you can have tall builds and be safe even in earthquake-prone areas. I spent a month in Tokyo in 2015 and experienced at least three pretty good shakes. Once I was in the apartment on the 9th floor of a tall building. The swaying was very disconcerting and scary, but I think it's wrong to believe that you can't build tall in earthquake-prone areas. Tokyo has tall buildings and gets hit with earthquakes often.