CityLab Daily: A Car Wash Mania Is Taking Over the US
Also today: The planned transformation of a London landmark, and Notre Dame’s tiny namesake shows the plight of religious colleges.
Investors can’t resist the lucrative returns from the burgeoning car wash industry.
Photographer: Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group Editorial via Getty Images
In a country with roughly 280 million private cars and trucks, can there be a thing as too many car washes?
A growing number of city leaders seem to think so. Over the last decade, more car washes were built than all the preceding years combined, with the boom reflecting a broader shift away from do-it-yourself car care habits. While investors are scrambling to buy a piece of the $14 billion-plus industry, neighbors say that most self-service car washes don’t pay sales taxes or offer many jobs. In fact, they wonder what they bring to communities at all, Patrick Sisson reports. Today on CityLab: Why Are There Suddenly So Many Car Washes?
—Teresa Xie