Can we shut up about houses? 8 billion people can not live in american suburbia. If you talk about your own place to live, which includes apartments, then ignore this. Taking medieval times into your argument is also insane. Most people in medieval times were peasents whose land belonged not to them but to their lord. This ment that not only they were NOT free to go somewhere else but that they had to work and create resources for their landlord. So this was an even worse form of wage labour as your lord decided what he will get from you. Imagine saying those people were better off.