Old-timers in your town know where the creek used to run and what the mall used to be. Ask them. Places have memories too.

A town has layers and only the top one is visible to you. Somebody who has lived there sixty years can tell you what the parking lot was before it was a parking lot, which road used to flood, why the street carries that name. Local history is largely unwritten and stored in people who are rarely asked for it.

Ask an older neighbour, or a regular at your work, what this street used to be. Then go and stand at the spot with the answer in your head. Knowing the old shape of a place changes how it feels to live in it.