Unlike in Europe, where the tradition is still to build in brick and concrete

What do you mean by "in Europe"? I'm from a European country where pretty much all houses are made of wood.

I'm assuming you are asking about why houses in tornado or hurricane zones are constructed out of wood. Hurricanes and tornadoes are extremely destructive and no building material can hold together in the path of a F4 or F5 tornado. In fact concrete and brick blocks can cause even more damage if they end up flying. So instead, buildings in Tornado Alley are required to have underground tornado shelters that can keep its occupants safe in a tornado.

I don't know where you got the idea that buildings in the US don't have strict building codes.

(On my phone, so will add sources later.) In California, at least, unreinforced masonry construction has been banned since 1933. This is because wood buildings flex in earthquakes but stay standing; unreinforced masonry, like brick or stone, falls down. Because of this, most new buildings less than six stories are wood-framed, and everything taller is steel framed or made of reinforced masonry or reinforced concrete.

edit: it's the Field Act of 1933 and Garrison Act of 1939.

What cheap building materials are you talking about in particular?

It's also a lot about which materials are abundant in a region. When you live in a wooded region like Canada it's only logical that many buildings are made of wood. But, when you take the Netherlands as an example, there aren't a lot of forests left but there is an abundance of clay which can be made into bricks. On a side note it also has a lot to do with the popularity of the Chicago school in the USA. If I recall correctly this style focused a lot more on concrete instead of bricks. The Chicago school was however not widely adopted in Europe.

Hello. This post has been removed, since it's asking about current building materials/codes in the US, rather than history. Note that this sub has a "20 year rule" against current events... but more importantly, a history sub probably isn't the best place to discuss building codes anyway. Perhaps there is a construction-oriented subreddit that would be more appropriate.