Someone should get down and count the number of new residences that will be created when all the new tall towers are built and completed. Even now, one finds it difficult to count the number of tall towers that are on plan or have been approved or are in any stage of construction.

There are, of course, other issues that should have been tackled, such as the impact on the country's infrastructure and on the already over-stressed roads, the impact on the country's landscape, etc.

But let's focus on the number of people needing to fill all these new residences, plus other people to fill all the other apartments hurriedly being constructed.

The end result is to posit Malta's resident inhabitants going into over-drive, well beyond the annual population increase. There is only one way to achieve this: get more and more foreigners in. What we have experienced these past years is just a trickle compared to what we will see, what we must see, in the coming years.

This thus provides the background to what was declared by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat last Sunday, which may be paraphrased as 'faster, faster, faster'.

Dr Muscat argued that to apply the brakes means to fall backwards. He gave the example of a treadmill: if you slow down, you risk falling off.

There is here in stark terms what will be our future, at least in the short term: more building permits, more cars on the road, more gaming companies, more venture capitalists. And also the obverse of the coin: more dust, more pulling down of buildings that should have been preserved, more chaos on the roads. This is Pax Muscatiana in simple brushstrokes.

There is a negative and also a positive side to this. The negative side is if, as is already happening now, we allow a rat race to the bottom, a free for all where savage capitalism reigns supreme. It is clear we cannot allow this as we also cannot allow corruption to triumph over the rule of law.

But there may also be a positive outcome. Malta will see a change that it has never seen in its history, as it rises from the 400,000 inhabitants of today to, say, 600,000 or even 800,000 to fill all those towers.

It can change from being just a destination to become a hub where people transfer from one plane to another, on their way to their destination.

There are still areas to develop - and we are not speaking here of ODZ - but rather, for instance on the inner areas of the Grand Harbour which is ripe for development on the Greenwich model, on the development of Marsamxett Harbour to become a second cruise liner harbor.

We do not need to cover every square inch of Malta with cement but we certainly need to ensure quality in everything we do - something impossible to find today in our bone-racking roads.

The biggest change will be - it already is but in an unplanned and chaotic way - in changing from an island with its people to a cosmopolitan island where people live in peace and racial harmony.

To get there we need full speed ahead, but we also need total control and nerves of steel. The problem is whether we have these nerves.