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Of course, a key part of this formula was the fifties having a far lower standard of living.
Perhaps, but it was a time when standards of living were rising and life was pretty good.
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Yes, and in reality fifties houses were below the standard most working class Americans expect today, both in terms of being tiny square footage single floor houses and because they lacked air conditioning and were extremely flimsy even by the standards of modern US single family housing.
In another reality, there's a ton of them in my neighborhood being occupied by working-class to upper-upper-middle class Americans. Many now have had air conditioning added, but flimsy? They're made of wood, not ticky-tacky.
Yeah, if anything the average wood quality was better back then because we hadn't run out of old-growth forests yet. It's really obvious when you compare antique furniture to most modern stuff.
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