Wood homes is quite an American thing. In many parts of Europe for example, many people live in brick or stone or blockwork or indeed concrete buildings (though raw concrete is mostly unfashionable.)
In New Zealand we have construction not dissimilar to the USA, from how Americans in HN describe house construction. 100+ year old wooden houses are common here.
Construction evolves due to avaliable resources and local conditions. Transplanting a technique from one country to on other won't necessarily work.
If you have earthquakes such as in NZ, USA or Japan building concrete houses does not make a lot of sense.
