That still doesn't seem like an "easy" comparison.
Rents tend to be tied to the infrastructure/facilities and earnings potential within a given radius of the property.
1919 London was dirty with terrible air quality (far worse than Beijing or Mumbai today, literally choked my great grandmother to death on a bad day) and with nowhere near the infrastructure or work opportunities it has today.
A fairer comparison to 1919 London would be a hypothetical working class town where the primary employers are steel mills and environmental standards are simply unenforced.
Sure, there are many ways that my simple (not easy) comparison is short changing current London but if you want to live there now and make the average wage then it may not matter to you so much that air quality is better or that streets are cleaner (because everywhere in the UK that is also true) when you cannot afford an apartment in the location that you would have been able to 100 years ago.
If we afford this nuance to a rising rent -- that its value depends on surrounding infrastructure -- why do economists treat rising wages as a "disease"? It seems to me that the average violinist has become more productive, because their audience will apply their improved well being to greater economic benefit than 100 years ago. They are providing a desired input to an improved infrastructure, just as an old apartment in a hot neighborhood.
Rents tend to be tied to the infrastructure/facilities and earnings potential within a given radius of the property.
1919 London was dirty with terrible air quality (far worse than Beijing or Mumbai today, literally choked my great grandmother to death on a bad day) and with nowhere near the infrastructure or work opportunities it has today.
A fairer comparison to 1919 London would be a hypothetical working class town where the primary employers are steel mills and environmental standards are simply unenforced.