> That's the conventional wisdom, but I don't buy it. Raising a family was always tough. I'm not saying it wasn't tough, but housing prices were much lower rel

> That's the conventional wisdom, but I don't buy it. Raising a family was always tough. I'm not saying it wasn't tough, but housing prices were much lower relative to incomes in the 50s and 60s, even in a place like San Francisco. Several of my relatives own million dollar homes there, and none of them are college educated or had spectacular careers or anything. Their only advantage is they were part of previous generations. Not a single one of them could hope to buy their current homes if they were starting their career from scratch today. Relative to housing costs, they enjoyed incomes that today would be in the range of a $300k+ base salary. We look back on their lives and don't see them as particularly posh because we're blinded by the astounding pace of technological growth. You could make a million dollars a year but you couldn't have a microwave oven before it was invented. > Yes, commuting sucks. But it sucked in the 20th century as well. Sure it did, but it's a lot worse today because traffic congestion has progressed to unprecedented levels. It's not just about time spent commuting -- it's also about how stressful the commute itself is. Whenever my dad visits here in Houston, who used to do a big city commute in the 70s and 80s in Dallas with no problem, he freaks out because of how bad the traffic is.