This (and similar comments below) are a very American view of the situation. To be honest, as a kiwi I was the same when the first moved to the UK "why are the

This (and similar comments below) are a very American view of the situation. To be honest, as a kiwi I was the same when the first moved to the UK "why are they building NEW buildings out of brick???" It's because there's so much clay here, the materials to make bricks are abundant and this is similar in other parts of Europe. Brick is also more resilient to the weather here, if they build hosues with wood like NZ (or America) they'd degrade incredibly quickly.