[dilyevsky]

Most of the world doesnt have access to good/cheap canadian lumber and we do. It would make sfhs and even small multihome projects more expensive not less if you start building them from concrete and steel. Also at the risk of stating the obvious - frame is on the order of 10-20% of the total construction cost so wouldn’t really make much of difference anyway

[pfdietz]

I was noticing on my last trip to Europe that telephone/power poles were made of concrete, not wood. This was near Budapest.

[dilyevsky]

Same reason - US had a lot of timber and Europe generally didn't by the time industrial revolution came. In addition, a lot of eastern europe had to be totally rebuilt from scratch after ww2 and especially soviets were never really good with money (duh) and did a lot of the things for the show.