If you have ever read any of Carl Jung, you would understand your dreams are information from your unconscious. Your dreams are symbols which is the way the unconcscious speaks to the conscious self. Your dream has important information for you because you have remembered it so clearly and for such a long time.

Some examples of that symbolism are: tall building which could represent the ego. The people being taller than you could represent your feelings of inferiority. The poorness of their lifestyle could represent an emptiness within your soul; yearning for a connection to a higher power. Laundry being hung out publicly could mean your insecurities are exposed to the world.

Those are just possible meanings of your dream symbols. Only you can assign the value to those symbols. It sounds to me that you are moving into a period of your life that will take you into self development and discovery.

Dreams have meanings.
Persephone

surrender