This story from Zhejiang reminds us of a story from Fremont and Sandy in Northeast Portland, retold here:

On any given day, there are plenty of homes for sale in the Roseway neighborhood, but it's not very often that someone comes in and wants to buy several blocks worth. But, that's exactly what Fred Meyer did back in 1949 when he started to build his Rose City shopping center which was at the time the "largest store in the West" on 70th and Sandy. Well, almost… There was one home that was definitely not for sale, regardless of how much Mr. Meyer was willing to pay. The 4 room home on 69th, owned (at the time) by Eugene and Ruth Murray had been paid off free and clear and there was no way the owners were going to walk away from it and have to purchase another property somewhere else. So, what's a developer to do? Build around it, of course!











Legend has it that after the store was built, whenever Meyer was preparing to buy out homeowners at other locations, he would take them to Rose City to show them "how nice the new store was going to be." He never said a word about the Murray house, but he made sure they all saw it. There were no more holdouts.