The article is fairly UK-centric, and in the UK, most suburban homes are made of brick.

"Brick" homes are common in the US too, but most made after WWII are simply veneers over a structure of a different material. Are you sure that's not the case there? I did an image search for "uk home construction", and all of the instances on the first page also appear to be veneers.

Example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/615000-new-...

I'm another UK resident/former resident who can confirm that at least some new suburban homes are constructed primarily from bricks.

The article says 1.5 trillion bricks are produced annually...wonder where they are getting used. In North America their use seems to have been relegated to facades.

In central/southern Ontario, nearly all homes have brick facades (stick-built frames), even cheap subdivision homes and new construction. I'd put it at something like 80%-90%. I have no idea why brick is so popular here, but that's a lot of bricks.

Brick exteriors do not burn. Brick exteriors are much more rugged to the elements. Brick exteriors do not require maintenance of painting, etc. Brick exterior houses are cheaper to insure. There's lots of reasons for brick exterior than just aesthetics.

I agree with everything you said (particularly the no maintenance part), but I think there must be another explanation as to why brick facades are so prevalent on southern Ontario houses. Other areas with similar climates and population levels (say, Minnesota) have much fewer brick homes.

It probably comes down to tradition. In the old parts of any city, all of the 100 year-old houses have brick exteriors, as well as most of the houses built since then.

Thermal mass too, I think - though it's also not uncommon to see a lot of brick construction in areas where timber is in shorter supply (whether that's because it's already been logged, is protected from logging, or trees just aren't very big).

Maybe not in North America but in Europe and the middle east it is very common.