Every morning, I drive up Mauldin rad until it intersects August. As I cross Augusta, I always catch sight of the strip mall on the corner of Potomic and Augusta and wonder how any of the stores there possibly stay in business.

Many of the shops are vacant, and the few that do have businesses seem so neglected that their demise seems imminent.

And then, out of the blue one morning, the whole thing is gone. A pile of rubble, with only a short a news report about it.

The comment at the end of the report about pushing people out of their homes without giving them any affordable options was likely not a comment about the shopping center but about the neighborhood next to it — the neighborhood that houses my school. There has been noticeable gentrification taking place over the last decade or so. A quick look at Zillow estimated property values in the area tells the story: