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With sliding definitions of both "middle class" and "afford" I believe this answer will always be "no".

You can always pick a median income.

What's sliding with the definition of "afford"? I thought there was broad agreement that housing should be no more than 30% of your gross income, give or take a couple percent based on who you ask.

Sliding because features of housing keep increasing. Things that were luxury few decades back and still in most parts of the world are part of an economy house in US.

Okay, but I'd say that's the definition of housing changing, not the definition of afford.

But there's a lot of places where you can't even get an affordable apartment. And it's hard to get a smaller house at a proportionally smaller price.

Dot com boom and 2008, moreso 2008, that 30% slid up to around 50%. People justified it to themselves because, as mentioned elsewhere, "Real estate always goes up!"

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