I clicked on and read through this entire article thinking how to weave “The Three Little Pigs” into my response, but you included it — and then didn’t take the main lesson from that children’s Civil Engineering primer. I’d guess it is because you sold a lot of pigs those straw houses.

I grew up in the US where almost all houses are wood framed. I even worked for a summer as frame carpenter (I still have and use the awesome framing hammer I bought for the job). Here in Europe, particularly in Austria where I live, houses are made with brick. Not only are well-made brick houses more fire resistent than well-made straw houses, they also don’t get blown down in from Big Bad Wolves — or as we called them in Texas, “Hurricanes.”

The issue has a whole lot to do with taxes, utilities and zoning. The US system basically encourages flipping and speculation, whereas the Austrian system has incentives to buy a house and keep it a long time. Thus the higher cost for bricks is amortized over a much longer period for each owner (on average).