Somehow that which is all ours won't be all ours any longer, and another factor may be our fear of change, a fear that the community we know will not be the same. There is always opposition to a new subdivision from the residents who believe it will change their landscape and their community, and those protesting residents are not always neighbouring.

We share that, and for that reason I think we saw as heroes the residents whose court challenge overturned the approvals for big subdivisions at Catherine Hill Bay, Gwandalan and Huntlee near Branxton. The residents' case was that a former state minister for planning had shown bias in negotiating a deal for the transfer of land to the public in the event of approval for the subdivisions, and the judge agreed with them, describing the deal as "land bribes".

But for the years I reported local government affairs in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s councils always negotiated a better public deal from developers. That was often, even usually, land for parks; sometimes it was both the provision of land and the building of a child-care centre or a community hall. Sweeteners but hardly bribes!

I cannot see how the loss of almost 8000 houses across three subdivisions is anything to cheer about. Can you?

On Friday we saw a similar response to the Department of Housing building dozens of public housing projects in the Lower Hunter using Federal Government stimulus money. No one, of course, wants a block of public housing units in their street. Of course? And everyone has good and worthy reasons why such a development should not be in their parish, and that ranges from property values to frogs and owls.

People have to live somewhere but where are the 160,000 extra people predicted for the Lower Hunter over the next 20 years going to live? Should we push them off in boats to seek asylum in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka! Should we bar new people from living within 200km of the coast!

Is our response a natural selfishness? And should it sway government and courts?