[codefreeordie]

Yep, housing is one of the few things whose relative price has increased, primarily because the planet is the same size now but there are more people.

In other areas, people were absurdly more wealthy in 2016 than in 1916 -- in terms of the quality of food, transportation, healthcare, nearly all household goods, services of most kind except domestic/household staff, and of course all the technology that didn't exist at all then.

Think about it this way: the planet is the same planet, but an hour of work at an average job should on average buy you an hour's worth of stuff-made-by-labor (of average skill/value). As human productivity grew due to better equipment, better materials, better science, and more efficient operations, the amount of stuff an average hour of work produces is way higher -- and thus the average worker can afford more/better stuff for the same amount of time worked.

Some work got way more productive, some got a little more productive, and a few things (like domestic help) are exactly the same level of productivity as before. And so some things, we have absurdly cheaper or better things, but others have gotten slightly more expensive instead.