Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
yes
check clothing costs, food cost
check what people expect from their housing
check what is considered as a minimum viable equipment in house
how much people travel
and so on
compared to past, especially pre-industrial times it is more of growth of expectations
when you measure cost of square footage of housing, measured by hours of average/median/typical low wage - then a lot of costs increase disappears do that while holding quality standards steady, and it disappears even more substantially
people dramatically underestimate wealth of typical modern people, compared to XX/XIX/XVIII century
when compared to typical people in ancient times (NOT emperors or pharaohs) it is even more hilarious
Pretty much everywhere I go, modern housing is appalling. Buildings thrown together; decorative panels falling off new-built apartments; concrete slabs rush-poured and not given proper time to cure; residential towers that catch fire or crack so badly they become uninhabitable; just enough lighting that you can photograph it for a real estate listing, but not enough to actually live in it; cupboards shallower than the width of a single mug; I could go on. It is not clear to me that we know how to build things any more.
You should compare equivalent-cost housing (in work hours or at least in inflation-adjusted cost), not worst currently available to best preserved ones.
Are you doing this?
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