alt Hacker NewsAmericans used to build cities with brick and masonry. They were repeatedly destroyed by strong earthquakes, as would happen to your city if subject to similarly severe earthquakes. Americans paid for that lesson in blood.
European houses are not designed to withstand American disasters. A brick house that can survive a M8.5 earthquake, which is the safety standard where I live, will be almost purely steel structurally and very expensive to build. The brick would be decorative, which can be (and is) done on a wood frame.
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Concrete + rebar and then a steel roof secured with hurricane-proof metal straps, or just tile roofing if the area isn’t hurricane prone. Concrete can also be used for things like insulated concrete forms (ICF) that save energy and improve insulation for both hot and cold.
I definitely understand what you are saying here, and it makes sense. But concrete is quite common in Europe these days, which I suspect would also be a good option for earthquake zones.
The entire south and south-east of Europe has a similar seismic risk to most of California, and wooden houses are nowhere to be seen.