The city felt like something old and crumpled with dust and treasures caught in its crevices, and then it was smoothed out and swept clean and some of its people were pushed out as though they had themselves been dirt. A junk shop became a high-end pizzeria, a storefront church became a hair salon, a radical bookstore became an eyeglass boutique, and a lot of things became sushi bars. The place became blander, with more chain stores and more cars, and without flyers layered atop each other on telephone poles, without family pharmacies and odd businesses like old temples where the priest still
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