Extremal density for sparse minors and subdivisions

We prove an asymptotically tight bound on the extremal density guaranteeing subdivisions of bounded-degree bipartite graphs with a mild separability condition. As corollaries, we answer several questions of Reed and Wood on embedding sparse minors. Among others, (1+o(1))t2 average degree is sufficient to force the t×t grid as a topological minor; (3/2+o(1))t average degree forces every t-vertex planar graph as a minor, and the constant 3/2 is optimal, furthermore, surprisingly, the value is the same for t-vertex graphs embeddable on any fixed surface; a universal bound of (2+o(1))t on average degree forcing every t-vertex graph in any nontrivial minor-closed family as a minor, and the constant 2 is best possible by considering graphs with given treewidth