I live in an old wood house that was built 200-400 years ago. I only know because my neighbor's house looks identical and is built around 1640. No structural things have been changed, only internal renovations and addons.
I was surprised myself. Even more so when you hear that most old concrete or brick town houses have been either destroyed and rebuilt or structurally renovated in the last 40 years or so.
It should be noted that old growth wood is significantly higher quality wood than what you'd get from most stores these days. The fast-growing wood is flimsier and less rot resistant, but it can also be replanted and replaced quite easy.
Only using old growth as a source of wood would cause quick deforestation of the remaining old growth forests and nature reserves only for the trees to be replaced with the worse trees we use today. It would only work once, the next generations would still get the crappy quick lumber we use today or be stuck without wood while waiting for forests to regrow, so it's not really an option. If we go for wooden houses everywhere, we're going to need to use the "industrial" wood.
“Old growth” wood isn’t materially better for construction along most axes, and possibly all that matter (example: modern SPF is roughly as rot resistant as “old growth wood”, but we also have way better ways to keep it dry too). Construction requires straight-enough material with sufficient flex (compression strength is a gimme) that can effectively hold fasteners. The “crappy quick lumber” that old people complain about today is actually, genuinely fine for what it is intended to be used for and fifty years from now people will be complaining about what they can buy at Robo Home Depot with the same fervor that people complain about modern silvaculture today.
I can only talk from a smaller scale. All the wood houses here are built with wood from here. Forests are strictly regulated and it's heavily illegal to deforest faster than its sustainable for the region. At least half of the people here also heat with wood, usually from their own lands. I personally have literally zero heating cost increase this year, which is crazy in Europe.
There are however at least thousands of trees for every person living here so that couldn't be scaled to a city.
Engineered wood solved that problem. Plywood is a type of engineered wood. Same for gluelams, LVLs, and CLTs. These are typically stronger than solid timber, including old growth.
It does take more energy to fabricate, but still much less than concrete and steel.
I live in Sweden,there's plenty of wooden houses that are hundreds of years old. How long a building lasts is much more a function of other factors, not the building material itself.
My house was built in 1905, all wooden frame. The timber is in perfect shape and as long as there are no leaks, will last for another hundred at least. It becomes very hard though and difficult to nail into. I would imagine wood has more longevity under the right (dry) conditions than steel.
When done properly, wood charring actually strengthens the wood by drawing out moisture. Charred wood is also more fire-resistant, repels insects and doesn't rot.
Of course all this can be achieved differently but charring usually lasts much longer than other surface treatments.
It used to be common in Japan (yakisugi) but I assume this must have been common throughout the world.
My neighbors large barn in the gold country of California has support pillars under the floor that were treated by charing. Built around 1890 and they are still in good shape.
Structurally modifying wood can be done even better than fire treatment, hence the mention of polymer enhanced wood. (And yes, biopolymers work for this.)
I had a civil engineering friend who worked for a firm that specialized in wooden buildings (the proper name escapes me, but think office buildings made of wood?).
According to him it’s very in demand, and it can rival traditional building methods.
Some of ye olde concrete prefabs are standing now for over a century. As are brick buildings.
It could be fixed by turning wood into polymer reinforced wood, but that is an entirely different building method, closer to brick.