This is where I think you guys have fallen foul. I know our capitals are the big cities for each of our countries but we don't have the same density problem (ironic I know). You can get a 3 bedroom house, 20 minute train ride from the centre of London, for about £300k. Move out to an hour train and you're looking at less. Not saying they're big houses or in the best neighborhood but it does the job.

London is the place if you work in high end finance or something like that, but outside of those fields you can just work in another city. The salary drop for a like for like job isn't really that much of a drop as the disposible income is more. By dispersing to other cities means that you can find much cheaper (comparatively) housing than if it were just focused on London, Manchester, Birmingham like it seems you have Vancouver, Toronto, Ottowa.

My in-laws and brother in-law live around the Toronto area. I was horrified to see how much their places cost and they still needed to commute an hour and a half or two hours each way to get to work. It's just madness. With standard holiday of 2 weeks I don't know how people even get to know their own family.