This is a good news story. The building and building and building in Darwin, and the proliferation of suburbs and housing estates after housing estates, along with higher and higher and denser and denser high-rises, seems never-ending.

I live in an older, now-disregarded suburb but appreciate the space that still surrounds us.

One thing is for sure. The larger the population, the more people you need to support the people already there. Darwin is really very much like a ‘growing like Topsy’ Ponzi scheme when it comes to population growth and the not-too-gradual suffocation of open spaces with buildings and other infrastructure.

The aim seems to be to grow and grow Darwin and Palmerston. until suburbia envelopes Coolalings, Noonamah, engulfs Howard Springs and Humpy Doo, and is well on the way to eating the eroding space between this southern, western and eastern push until Batchelor surrenders its rurality.

At least then, the Yissa Refugees will no longer feel isolated.