There is a strong belief that everyone should be able to afford a place to live, alone, in some place with a convenient location (downtown or within walking distance of transit), and then after a few years you should be able to buy a house.
When I grew up, I had multiple roommates, and we’d carpool whenever possible. I scrimped and saved pretty hard to get a down payment saved up. By my day’s standards, it wasn’t crazy to cook 99% of your own food, brew all your coffee at home or the office (hopefully free), get any free food you can possibly convince your employer to give you, and have one TV everyone fights over. My dad made his own “furniture” (until my mom moved in and smacked some sense into him…). My mom grew up sleeping in an hot attic with 3 siblings, because the other 5 siblings took up all available rooms.
I’m not saying life shouldn’t improve each generation, but I think people are expecting it to improve way faster than it actually is.