I'm from Belgium, I don't know any house that doesn't use bricks/cement/other form of stone material. Maybe sometimes something softer on interior walls, but even there it's mostly stone.
I assume we don't go for the easier-to-rebuild because we don't have any strong types of nature force affecting us. There's no earthquakes, tropical storms, tornados etc here. Our summers are "cool" (going over 30C is pretty rare), our winters are "warm" (5 cm snow already feels like a lot to me). In short, we have a pretty moderate climate.
Edit: Pretty much the same as ugh[1] said in the other comment.
I've often wondered about the reasons for differences in home construction methods.
Do you have a lot of available forests? We have millions of acres of timber available and that makes framing houses with wood much cheaper. Especially when you consider how much airspace/insulation modern houses have.
In California, earthquakes are the issue. Brick buildings use to be common, but they don't hold up very well in earthquakes. I ma guessing the cost of supplies also play a role.
I assume we don't go for the easier-to-rebuild because we don't have any strong types of nature force affecting us. There's no earthquakes, tropical storms, tornados etc here. Our summers are "cool" (going over 30C is pretty rare), our winters are "warm" (5 cm snow already feels like a lot to me). In short, we have a pretty moderate climate.
Edit: Pretty much the same as ugh[1] said in the other comment.
1: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3324587