whittling

A chip or shaving whittled from some larger substance.

The art of carving shapes out of raw wood using a knife.

A process of repeatedly shaving slivers from a piece of wood (non-artistic).

The reducing of something by degrees, especially at the expense of some effort.

a whittling down

Result: nothing would prevent the rapid destruction of the Deco District. Already the developers are calling for a whittling down of the original square mile to a few blocks. The few blocks will no doubt be whittled down to one building, and in the end all that will be left will be a Deco mailbox well pissed on by the local dogs. In another era it was called salami tactics.