My take on this: life is actually a lot harder for young people than when we were kids. There is less opportunity for upwardly mobile advancement, and social media has essentially wrecked people's brains (adults included). I complained that I think it's sad that a lot of young people don't just see "going over to friends' houses to hang out" as a primary option - it just doesn't occur to a lot of young people, but in many respects a lot of them never learned this skill as kids. Tons of studies have shown kids have a lot less "unstructured play" time than they used to.
But then given that stuff is actually harder, I think blaming "stuff is just too expensive" is simply easier. Otherwise it forces you to confront the fact that a lot of this stuff is in your control.
Again, I have to chuckle when I hear these excuses. When I was young in mid 90s we would all pile in to someone's 400 square foot studio apartment.
I'm not blaming young people today for not seeing this as an option. But it is the case that lots of folks have/had a lot less space and didn't see that as any barrier to hanging out.
So many excuses. You don't even need someone with an apartment. Just pick an out of the way location and converge. Went to many a party back in the day out on an untraveled road. We didn't even have mobile phones to coordinate.
In high school we regularly threw 100+ person parties under bridges and along the river, in random lots, wherever we could, really. However, it required a lot of coordination and trust between a lot of people to avoid surprise police encounters, and the local police personally had me and some of my associates on their shitlist which further complicated things. It was an environment I thrived in, but I wouldn't want my child to have to encounter the same level of risk and paranoia just to hang out with their friends.
I hear you, the police were often an issue once the party got to a certain size. But throwing a rager will always have some risk, and seems far beyond just hanging out with friends.
But then given that stuff is actually harder, I think blaming "stuff is just too expensive" is simply easier. Otherwise it forces you to confront the fact that a lot of this stuff is in your control.