"We could always look forward to a day when the mortgage would be paid and the pressures of homefulness would lessen."

People used to have employer sponsored pensions too, but that bird has flown. Now we have 401k and IRA accounts. Historically, home prices have tracked inflation, after tranaction costs, maintenance, ext. you wouldn't do worse by renting and in fact could do better. The world has changed(for now), at least in desirable areas. No easy answer to fix this, people go where the jobs are and that feeds on itself. The main reason home prices are still fairly reasonable here, is because jobs are not plentiful. There is no free lunch.