It's always a very strange feeling when I see how in the american home-reconstruction TV shows they're tearing the walls and it's all wood.
Same case when I see the effects of hurricanes... it all feels very fragile comparing to what we have here.
I work in the wood-construction industry so we are trying to get more people to build from wood, so we have a pretty good picture of which regions traditionally build from wood and which don't. It's really hard to generalize across Europe as usual. If anything, wood construction is certainly becoming more popular, not less.
According to our national agency 90% of all single family homes built in 2020 was with a wooden frame/core and about 5% masonry.
Edit: Stucco plaster on wooden core is somewhat common here, which maybe makes it look like more houses are masonry core than actually is?
- wood is cheap in US (historically was 10x cheaper)
- there is a lot of land, plots are big, so you can fit everything in a single level
- wood is better for handling earthquakes, brick walls cracks
- cultural (wood has always been much better for construction in US)