SNIP
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>There are dozens of other materials to make houses from, including blocks made of certain sorts of industrial waste. Most of them perform better against earthquakes, fire and tornados/hurricanes. It's just that the construction industry here knows everything about wood, and uses the other stuff on rare occasions. It may be that I'm coming from an area (the Pannonian flats) where there's good clay for brick anywhere, just dig two spades deep.

That's interesting. I would have thought that stone/brick houses would be far worse in earthquakes, given that they essentially have no "give". Admittedly, that's just my simple mind and some base logic.

As regards thhe construction industry here, I believe you're right. Now, over the last year or so in particular, I have seen steel being used for virtually entire dwellings, at least as far as walls and roofs are concerned. I think there was real thin 'composite' wood panels as the roof topping and still large wood beams for the floor topping the basement.
All this steel looks and is dimensioned exactly like a 2x4. It is all assembled in sections elsewhere, brought to the sites on flatbeds, and erected real fast. Of course there is brick veneer and drywall as finishing stuff.

All this in a place where wood is plentiful... except that the good stuff has been sold offshore for years and we could only buy the dregs here for our own use. Steel seems to have solved that problem.