Young, single women, needed room mates , as far back as 1965, dear. You wanna talk about rents ? Look at what they are in N.Y.C. ( due to rent control, something you'd like, but doesn't work ! ) and in Chicago.
Nope, in the old Soviet Union, people were assigned apartments, the prices wre kept down, and they were dreadful for most people.
The Soviet apartments were dreadful and crowded too.