That's an interesting perspective that I wouldn't have expected. I didn't grow up anywhere near the 50s, but I feel like everything is worse from even my childhood in the 90s and 2000s. Malls are decrepit, national and state parks are under maintained but overrun with visitors, stadium seats could not be smaller (and are often so vertical in the "affordable" seats it creates vertigo sensations), parking lots are full of gigantic cracks and poorly marked areas and holes, theme parks are under maintained and expensive with huge lines and many from my childhood closed down, and it goes on and on. I went to an NFL game (only because I got free tickets). It took around 45 minutes from our car in the parking lot (not including the time to be directed to park), in a lot that I'm pretty sure was not paved at all, to get to our seats. The seats were so high up, we could barely see anything. We might as well have been watching from a nearby skyscraper. And the seats were sardine seats, as in sitting sideways so as to not hit the people in front of you with your knees. Those seats probably cost those around me hundreds of dollars.

It's also well known that many people from those older times had rents and mortgages at much smaller percentages of their monthly income than those today, whereas today they can exceed 50% easily.