I can't help but wonder: what proportion of the population has a place that they can truly, and with love, call home? Somewhere they feel alive in, and grow in, and feel confident raising a family in. Somewhere that persists. How about 30 years ago? 2000 years ago? 20,000 years ago? I think the visualization of this data would be very interesting indeed, albeit impossible to create.

It's my impression that it gets harder and harder to create a place called home for the average person, as wages go down, available jobs are more competitively sought after (especially the ones where you feel like a human doing humane things from day to day), and real estate & rent around urban centers goes up.

Count your blessings if your field of work is amenable to being done remotely, and start building out the skills, habits, and resources needed that go along with it asap.

About 5 months ago my mother sold a house that was built by my Grandmother in the 50's. That had been my home for 12 years or so and I'd been going to for as long as I'd been alive. I love that house, the garden, the sense of belonging. But it was expensive to run and mum could not afford to keep it (and I am not successful enough to make that go away alas).

That place was home in a deep and meaningful sense. Do you know what I realised when I drove home on a weekend to a new house with no history, no lore, no memories? Home is where mum is.

Of course I also have a home in London which is rented and changes all the time and that, too, is home. I don't need to own a place for it to be home. I don't have to be there or have been there for years. I just have to go home and feel good about the space which is mine and filled with my people (and my things).

I guess I just disagree with the premise that there is a need for what you describe. It's something people are taught they need in some cultures.

No doubt some of it is just making the best of an economic reality.

But short of living in a true "tiny home" (< 400 sq ft), many people today (myself included) are "right-sizing": choosing to live in smaller than average spaces and using smarter space utilization, usually in order to reap some other benefit, whether that is proximity to amenities, work, and transit systems, lowering utility costs, etc.

It probably helps that having a huge house is weakening (though clearly not gone) as a symbol of social status, especially in crowded coastal urban areas.