Design A Basement

Are there seismic reasons why there are few basements in the San Francisco Bay area?

I am in the San Jose area awhere there are few basements. I would think that there is a safe ways to build a basement to resist earthquake pressures. With price of land, besides building up, it would be economical to build down. I have seen parking structures under apartments.

Public Comments

1. you answered the question yourself. because of earthquake possibilities there are no basements to collapse into. its cheaper to build up then it is to build down anyways
2. It has more to do with the age of the house than any earthquake. When I lived in Redwood city our house, which was built in the 30's had a large basement with an gas fired heater in the center. With more modern methods of heating and lower cost of crawl space or slab floors basements have disappeared. We also had flooding on those really rainy years.
3. Earthquake is the reason ? If the wall crack then the house cave in .