<p>I seem to have inadvertently started something by leaving a few words out of my sentence. Sorry!</p>
<p>When I said “Many of these services would have been performed by the homeowners a generation ago.”, I should also have included …… in this town, so:
Many of these services would have been performed by the homeowners in this town a generation ago.</p>
<p>It was more a commentary on the changing times. I realize that many (most?) people still perform these tasks themselves, and when I was growing up in a very similar town, almost everyone handled these chores, but they have since been outsourced.</p>