At least here people, including my grandparents who lived through WOII, lived outside cities, had to travel hours for work and worked the land for food. They had 10 kids and they helped in the household and on the land (only for their own food: animals, veg and fruit) while the dad was away 12+ hours of the day (4+ hours commute) (my dad also travelled 4+ hours every day for work by the way; fairly normal in the 80s here; not sure what happened). This is still just possible; you don't need to live in a city and, again at least where I live, the prices drop sharply only a few hours drive from every large city (1.5m euro vs 1000s to 10ks for land and houses). Everyone can afford a house or land, but everyone wants to live on the city where they generally can't. If you want to raise (many) kids, you can choose the same life as my grandparents had (who also could not afford a house in the big city but wanted one so built multiple (one for them and later for their kids including my parents) with their own hands in a small village), but it's not an easy thing; it never was an easy thing.