Not sure what your cohort for "average person" is, but 20 years ago was 2006 not ancient rome. We had avoided the millenium crisis, and I was playing Counter Strike against people over the internet.
replyMy reference group for "average person" is people. (What else could it possibly be?) There are 8.3 billion of them now, and there were 6.7 billion 20 years ago. 02007 (19 years ago) was the year when the median person transitioned from living in the country, either on a farm or herding livestock, to living in a town or city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization#cite_ref-urbaniza...
replyOne side of my family has lived in cities and towns for over 100 years, but they were not average.