Regarding earthquake survival; that's only relevant in places where there are earthquakes. And last I checked, for the USA that's pretty much only the west coast and Hawaii. The major threats elsewhere appear to be major storms and flooding.
Sure, against heavy flooding you can't exactly do much even with a concrete building, although at least it'll take more before it takes off. But the other major factor of storms is wind pressure, and, well, the old three pigs fable has a rather good point in that stone houses just don't get blown down. You'd think you'd see more concrete construction in the prairie states where most of the tornadoes show up.
Finally; regarding temperature and isolation, thick enough concrete is very good at isolation, but generally here in the Netherlands you see load bearing concrete clad with 2 to 5 centimeters of extra isolation material before they get packed under a largely decorative brick covering. Well, for new construction, older buildings have lower energy efficiency standards. Used to be that temperatures were such that air conditioning wasn't really needed except for unusually hot summer days, but, well, unusually hot summer days are becoming decidedly less unusual these days. And given that I live on the second, top, floor (European counting) of a building like that it gets rather hot here if you're not careful. 30 to 35 degrees C during the day and if you are lucky you can cool it down to 25 at night, before dealing with 30 to 35 degrees inside the next day.
I'm pretty sure my downstairs neighbours have it better when it comes to high heat. When you have to deal with cold, even me, all I have to do is close the windows.
Sure, against heavy flooding you can't exactly do much even with a concrete building, although at least it'll take more before it takes off. But the other major factor of storms is wind pressure, and, well, the old three pigs fable has a rather good point in that stone houses just don't get blown down. You'd think you'd see more concrete construction in the prairie states where most of the tornadoes show up.
Finally; regarding temperature and isolation, thick enough concrete is very good at isolation, but generally here in the Netherlands you see load bearing concrete clad with 2 to 5 centimeters of extra isolation material before they get packed under a largely decorative brick covering. Well, for new construction, older buildings have lower energy efficiency standards. Used to be that temperatures were such that air conditioning wasn't really needed except for unusually hot summer days, but, well, unusually hot summer days are becoming decidedly less unusual these days. And given that I live on the second, top, floor (European counting) of a building like that it gets rather hot here if you're not careful. 30 to 35 degrees C during the day and if you are lucky you can cool it down to 25 at night, before dealing with 30 to 35 degrees inside the next day.
I'm pretty sure my downstairs neighbours have it better when it comes to high heat. When you have to deal with cold, even me, all I have to do is close the windows.