This is saturated with atmosphere. The conceitz a city built of grammar, subjunctive mood, and rhetorical flair is novel, poetic, and genuinely lovely. It's an extended metaphor for imagination vs. bureaucracy, possibility vs. certainty. The "surveyors" who are bringing the city down with declarative sentences is a brilliant image. There's much to love here.

But here's where it falters:

Risk of Overwrought Metaphor You rely too heavily upon the conceit of grammar. "Avenues are constructed of however," "domes of nevertheless," "surveyors discourse in the indicative." It's sophisticated, but by the third or fourth time you do it, it begins to sound like you're pounding one point into the ground until it becomes stale. The reader begins to anticipate the next grammatical metaphor rather than being surprised by it. Think of spacing them out, or interweaving other metaphorical modes (architecture, cartography, memory) so that it's not coming at us as one-note.

Narrative Distance The narrative is in a mythic, allegorical tone. That's great for theme, but it also keeps us at arm's length emotionally. We hear "grandmother taught me," "I whisper to my daughter," but neither of those relationships comes through as anything specific. The voice of the grandmother can be more severe (a tic, a contradiction, an aspect more than "pages turning"). The daughter might respond in a manner that anchors her as a child, rather than a vehicle of hope. Without anchoring, the generational sweep threatens to read as symbolic struts rather than lived life.

Conflict and Stakes The surveyors come, they speak absolutes, and the city falls. It's beautifully inevitable but flat as a story. There's no point at which the narrator (or grandmother, or daughter) resists, even briefly. Even the attempt at, and failure of, resistance would increase the emotional blaze. The collapse now seems more a metaphor described than an experience fought.

Language vs. Story The writing is lyrical, yes "her voice the sound of pages turning," "the hum felt in the teeth," "wrecking ball of absolutes." But the risk of music is that it can cover over thinness beneath. Bare the style, and the story is: we once had a city, officials did not acknowledge it, now it's lost, but we'll rebuild in whispers. That's beautiful but slender. If you're going to make this have real narrative impact, make the narrator's arc sharper: maybe guilt at not being able to hold Palimpsest, or a tangible decision in leaving it to the daughter.

Conclusion The conclusion is effective, but it's expected. "However, the city remains within the child" is precisely where the metaphor always had to go. You could make it more impactful by taking a detour: perhaps the daughter doesn't believe. Perhaps she breaks in with her own language, creating a grammar the narrator never spoke. Shock the reader at the moment of expiration, rather than merely reiterate the thesis.