Michael: I even watched all ten seasons of the show Friends. Boy, those friends really were friends, weren't they? Although, [ A waitress and a chef, with those Manhattan real estate prices?
Eleanor: Yeah, we were all confused about that, too. Your cast of good-looking single hangarounds live in fancy apartments in the Big City. None of them seems to work, or if they do, they're usually actors, columnists, or whatever leaves them with a lot of leisure time to have drama in their clean, well-furnished dwellings. How can they afford it? They have Friends Rent Control, named after Friends , where the cast handwaved their situation by saying they had rent control.
Rent control means that a landlord can only raise a tenant's rent by a certain percentage each year, making it possible for long-term residents to continue paying low rents while the neighborhood around them gentrifies. Illegal subletting may be involved if the renter has only lived there a short time.
The most obvious cause of the trope is that larger sets are easier to film in. Even if the home is supposed to look relatively run-down or poor, it's a nightmare to block out scenes where characters are practically on top of each other and get in each other's way when they move around. Larger sets also let you break up the action into multiple locations, allowing for concurrent scenes and conversations within the same area. Sets also have to be tall enough to hide boom mics and lighting, contributing to a cavernous feeling, and wide enough to get cameras and other production in there while leaving the actors with room to move.
Modern technology and miniaturization has diminished some of these issues, but the further you go back in time the bulkier they get. Similarly there is a certain amount of Wish-Fulfillment involved, however much the characters may struggle they can still go home to a place anyone would love to live in.
