[davidhbolton]

My parent's house, bought in 1970 for £4,000 sold for £32,000 in 1986. That was the high inflation of the 1970s to blame. But a house I bought in 2000 for £185,000 sold for £550,000 in 2015. That wasn't inflation to blame but supply and demand; the demand being the vast increase in UK population from 2000 on.

If you're happy to accept mass migration, that's one of the effects as is bigger class sizes in schools, more traffic on roads and an overburdened NHS.

[hkt]

Mass migration has little to do with it. The fact is, adding taxpayers to the pool who we haven't had to raise or educate is a net benefit to us (even if it is a loss to their countries of origin). The problem is that we decided to turn housing into a speculative asset rather than a retaining it as a utility. Decades of policy have gone into this, be it the right to buy, the bank of England's mandate, lending ratios expanding over time, and permitting NIMBYism and massive flows of rent seeking capital from abroad.

The BoE's mandate is particularly salient as it is for maintaining 2% inflation: the official measure of which excludes house prices and includes wages. It is very much the way it is by design.

[inglor_cz]

Is there, in your mind, any limit to how the London metropolitan area should expand? Or is any growth simply good?

[brnt]

The population rate of increase has been pretty constant since 1945. The seventies being flat is the exception.

[inglor_cz]

In 1945, the UK had far fewer people and it still had some slack when it came to resources such as land. Much of this slack has now been exhausted.

"The population rate of increase has been pretty constant since 1945" is actually a problem. This kind of eternal increase is not sustainable on a smallish island whose northern and western half isn't very suitable for housing.

[brnt]

It seems weird to single out population growth when bringing up unsustainability of growth. To address that an entirely different economic system will have to be created.

[tremon]

To address that an entirely different economic system will have to be created.

Great! When do we start?

[brnt]

We already have.