What happened to the houses on the Crescent Island?

It seems like the town of Nur-Huk is practically dying away.
Pirton has some houses by it, but...
In between Pirton and the Pirate Fort, there's a bunch of random houses. Is this simply because everyone wants to live by the "unstick me" point?
Midland Village seems to actually have lots of houses...
Milton doesn't have much by it. Other than that, things seem a lot more scattered and messy than before. x.x