This particular definition of country is an abuse of the British term (let alone "major"). You cannot compare England to Italy; you could compare it to Northern Italy, maybe. If you want to compare "major" country to "major" country, then use UK numbers. Figures would likely look different: every "major" nation out there will have more populous and less populous areas. You don't get to discount Scotland but include Southern Italy just because it suits your viewpoint better.

TBH, here in Northern England there is still plenty of brownfield to revamp and house prices are fairly sane. The problem is not Europe or England, it's bloody London, so go fix your own bloody problem.

"England officially became the second most crowded major country in the EU in 2008, according to figures released by the British Office for National Statistics"

I believe, it's because people from continental Europe sometimes don't differ between UK and England - but it's sensitive issue in the UK :-). UK is actually the first if we take European countries with over 20M people - 255people/km2.

So the wording is imprecise but I don't think the comparison is unfair.

Beyond that, it's absolutely true, the UK tops the list as a country with more than 20m people. (besides Germany, about 10% less dense or so, other populous countries like France, Spain, Poland, Ukraine, are much less dense, sometimes less than half as much)

A quick search didn't turn up anything with a decent resolution that covered Europe/the rest of the world at the same time (seemed mainly to be on a per-country basis).

Oh, and what "administrative purpose" binds England so much, considering it doesn't even have its own separated Parliament? Just because you have a west-lothian identity crisis, it doesn't mean the world has to play along.

You are free to refer to UK "countries" in internal matters (and football, of course), but when you go and compare with the rest of the world, you should be as honest as to compare entity-with-UN-seat to entity-with-UN-seat. Otherwise I might as well compare a couple of busy Italian blocks of flats to a Kent farm.

EDIT: I don't make this point out of some particular passion, but because your idea absolves the UK government of abdicating its responsibilities. If there is a density problem in London, enact policies attracting people to other cities, cities that actually need more people and would benefit from expansion. That's what other countries do. Coming up with arbitrary comparisons just to twist facts to this or that agenda is simply dishonest.

I think if mortgage rates went back to 6% - 8% a lot of people would be screwed.

If we want to solve the problem, and a whole host of other problems, perhaps we shouldn't have an open door immigration policy.

- Anglo Saxon obsession with property. There is a culture of being obsessed with home ownership in Anglo-Saxon countries. Particularly the UK. This pushes people to pay over the top for property and thus increases prices even further.

- Property prices seem to be increasing particularly sharply around London & Brighton. This is because they are wealth creation centres. Well paid jobs, tourism, industry, culture all cause property prices to go up as people want to live there.

- Weather. This one isn't written about so much. But the hypothesis is that people tend to want to live in the South because of better weather. The weather in Kent is far better than is say Yorkshire in terms of net sunlight and average temperatures.

I would be willing to bet that, in the past, property prices would have still sharply increased in certain areas even without high immigration.

Some reports even suggest the opposite, that increases in immigration can REDUCE house prices: "The University of Cambridge study concluded that an immigration inflow equal to 1% of the local initial population leads to a reduction of 1.6% in house prices".

Making unsubstantiated claims such as those of the parent is what drives the anti-EU right in the UK.

At least on HN, show me the numbers.

You're probably best off just trusting your gut instinct on these things.

Do you really seriously think that an increasing population could ever lead to falling demand for housing? How would that one work?

The charts in their "study" show clearly. Immigration increases, house prices increase.

A lot of people (Myself included) don't like to live in cities caged up like battery chickens.

And of course, one could also envision policies that actually create attraction centres alternative to London. But surely that's unreasonable to expect.

It's not /just/ a question of where to live, it's also a question of someday getting /some/ sort of pension -- it's very likely that pension rates returns are never going to be maintainable for 30 years since the gov can plunder it, and the 'age of retirement' will continue to climb (measured using the age of death of people who retired at 60 or earlier and who are dying now, and thus had a MUCH longer expectancy than us lot who'll have to work til 75 or so..)

So, houses are just investments. When I'll retire, I'll dump them, get the capital and use /that/ to live.

And yes, I know I'm not the 'typical' immigrant, but then again, I am one.

Why do people rob banks? Because that's where the money is. Where's the money in the UK? In property.

As property ownership becomes ever more concentrated, it a) becomes a more tempting target for fiscal raids and b) has fewer votes. There's a US economist whose name I forget who proposes that the big driver of property cycles isn't credit but regulation, as govts deregulate too much then finally swing back when the horrible consequences become electorally inconvenient.

Also, it'd still be a better use of money than a pension that is 1) locked and 2) unusable until perhaps after you are dead... At least you can 1) sell it and buy something else and 2) live in a house and enjoy it.

Mind you, I don't completely understand the drive most people have here to 'buy our own home' - even in their early 20's!- in france, people don't even think about buying anything until they hit 35 or more! People are quite happy to rent a flat for a long while... or forever in many cases.

Also, there the geometry problem: in france, the big majority of 'comfortable' homes are in fact in small apartment blocks, all over the cities. In the UK, you need a 'detached home' otherwise, it's no go. Needless to say, it's not terribly space efficient. Most new properties outside london are smaller and smaller 'semi detached' format that are often smaller in surface than a nice flat!

So i think there's also quite a bit of 'cultural' bias to the property crisis.

I'm not aware of any moves by uk.gov to "help people buy property" to live in. If you mean the so-called "Help to Buy" policy, that IMO had precisely the opposite effect in that it kicked off the latest round of price insanity on the perception that uk.gov would support the bubble with taxpayer money if necessary. It was an extremely cynical and damaging move with no obvious rationale other than the electoral one.

Fully agree that France does housing much better than the UK. Pretty much everyone does housing much better than the UK. We have an anti-market, designed to deliver the smallest possible number of lowest possible quality homes at the highest possible price. Yay.

The better explanation is that real estate is just about the only thing that can boundlessly go up in price without any perceived increase in quality or performance and so it tends to be a sink for surplus wealth generated by a nation. On top of that there are a lot of wealthy people competing with each other for investing in the UK real estate market (and those are not just UK residents) and interest rates are at an historic low which tends to drive up prices.

If London must continue being the ever-expanding world-beating hard-rocking sweat-soaking multi-megalopolis, then the surrounding countryside has to give. If the countryside has to be preserved, London must stop attracting people or even incentivize residents to move elsewhere.

I find it incredible that, because nobody can make a choice one way or the other, the rest of the country is forced to pay the price, as money flows to London "home investments" from more useful economic activity, the brain-drain towards the capital continues unabated, and brownfields keep rotting away.

You can build up instead of out.