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Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

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Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#441

Post by hermitcrab »

gotoeleven wrote: post #140
Antip0dean wrote: post #106

This is a big thing in the UK, too. The official narrative here is modern slavery with undocumented migrants. It's the same with sex work, with which is harder to separate between conservative propaganda and reality. I expect the main difference between the US and UK versions are that the latter are typically set up in disused urban plots with pop-up tents and temporary chain-link fences rather than having any invest…

Sorry it's conservative propaganda that illegal immigrants will work for very low wages at crappy jobs?

I volunteer at a refugee charity. In my experience people given the right to stay will take whatever work they can get, which is often crappy work at low wages due to lack of transferable skills and/or English (e.g. security guard).

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#442

Post by hermitcrab »

johnwalkr wrote: post #43
bluefirebrand wrote: post #5

In my city you're not allowed to wash your car in your driveway I guess it's too hard on the storm drains to have soap and dirt and stuff going down them Or maybe city council is just in some kind of racket with car wash owners or something But either way, that's why we have so many car washes here... And it sucks ass

I think generally it should not be allowed. A big component of soap is phosphates, which promote algae growth so you really don't want it in your rivers. Some cities have combined or separated sewer systems. Even if combined, it may be designed to overflow during heavy rain, so it's not a guarantee that car wash water with dirt, soap and oil will not go into into a stream somewhere although in that case you're also s…

>I think generally it should not be allowed. A big component of soap is phosphates, which promote algae growth so you really don't want it in your rivers.

Shouldn't we ban people showering under the same logic? I use about the same amount of soap to wash my car as I do in the shower, but I shower a lot more often.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#443

Post by _heimdall »

lmm wrote: post #364
_heimdall wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the parks/“natural land”: would you rather land exist as an empty razed dirt field for speculators to wait to sell, or given back to the city? That seems to be jumping to an extreme end, that someone owns an empty plot of land that has been cleared and destroyed to bare, dead dirt. My concern is that the same incentive pushing one to sell a pile of dirt would exist for someone owning an undeveloped, natural plot…

> That seems to be jumping to an extreme end, that someone owns an empty plot of land that has been cleared and destroyed to bare, dead dirt. My concern is that the same incentive pushing one to sell a pile of dirt would exist for someone owning an undeveloped, natural plot of land. My earlier caveat still exists, maybe this isn't a concern in dense areas though it would add some blockers for anyone interested in tur…

> frankly putting a tax on land is more likely to return some of those unused lots to the city

This seems like a really dangerous justification, and frankly one that would be a complete no-go for me. You just made it clear that the goal, at least in part, is to make a tax so high that it more often goes unpaid and the city can take the land away from the land owner. They might as well skip the game and claim eminent domain.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#444

Post by _heimdall »

crooked-v wrote: post #349
_heimdall wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the parks/“natural land”: would you rather land exist as an empty razed dirt field for speculators to wait to sell, or given back to the city? That seems to be jumping to an extreme end, that someone owns an empty plot of land that has been cleared and destroyed to bare, dead dirt. My concern is that the same incentive pushing one to sell a pile of dirt would exist for someone owning an undeveloped, natural plot…

> That seems to be jumping to an extreme end If anything it's not extreme enough. Consider how much area in city downtowns is given over to paved-over parking lots that are just left to sit there rent-keeping for years. That's worse than just dirt fields, because at least the dirt fields can support life! > My concern is that the same incentive pushing one to sell a pile of dirt would exist for someone owning an unde…

> If you have an undeveloped plot of land in a city where land taxes are high, you should be incentivized to either sell that to someone who will make use of it, or donate it to the city to serve as a public park

Why must land goes used? Is the assumption that we must fully utilize every inch of land in a city, regardless of what people living there or the land owner wants?

Building on as much usable space in an already high density area can and has had downsides that seem to get overlooked in this thread. Higher density means more traffic, higher demand on infrastructure and utilities, and the need to bring in even more resources from outside the city and send out even more waste for someone else to deal with (to name a few).

This assumption that taxing land high enough to make sure that none of it is left undeveloped unless the city owns it is begging for runaway problems, unless these other considerations are factored in. Doing so almost certainly means not having the tax, as the goal of more dense development competes with the other concerns.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#445

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

beede wrote: post #286
greedo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any of the fancy new car washes in my town were only clearing $1k/day, they'd be folding shop pretty quickly. I don't know where you live, but the wash by me (JetSplash) does between 500-1000 cars a day at over $20 a pop. So you're off by a magnitude or more.

1000 cars in 12 hours is 42 seconds each. Does JetSplash really move them through a single stall that fast? The wash I go to in the spring (salt removal) takes about 600 seconds. Just asking since that makes it more like a factor of 2 than 10.

I'm guessing OP was referring to the average over multiple stalls.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#446

Post by smallerfish »

mdasen wrote: post #233
_heimdall wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you see a solution here of higher property taxes, is it focused on the raw land value or on the value of "improvements?" I've never been a fan of taxing the value of raw land, mainly because it creates incentives for destroying natural land and extracting as much value as possible from the space. Taxing structures based on the expected economic value can make sense, though even then if its a business there are m…

Land value taxes aren't about destroying natural land to extract value. The point of taxing the value of the land in urban areas is that a lot of the time places essentially squat on land that could be better used. A car wash building will have a low assessed value for its improvements compared to a biotech building. For example, in my city we have a carwash with its improvements valued at $400,000 and a biotech buil…

> Land value taxes don't destroy natural land. They'd probably preserve it.

Consider a farm on the edge of town. Without LVT, the incentive to sell could be considered positive; i.e. the farmer may sell when they're offered sufficient money for it. With LVT, the incentive to sell could be considered negative; they will be charged more and more in taxes from the state as the town develops up to the boundary of the farm until they can no longer afford _not_ to sell. That means that there is a built in sprawl function to LVT - towns will continue eating up the countryside as their centers push value of land up around them.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#447

Post by _heimdall »

sushibowl wrote: post #435
thaumasiotes wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s no need to limit land value taxes based on density as that’s what’s giving land its value. That can't be the case; density is an amenity and is, by definition, not part of the value of the land.

That seems like a strange definition to me. It's clear that people are willing to pay higher prices for land with amenities nearby, so by definition the value of the land is increased.

I think wires are getting crossed here on the "useful" or intrinsic value of land versus the market value. The GP was arguing that the land value is separate from outside considerations like amenities.

People argue this over things like gold as well. IMO at the end of the day its impossible to tease apart anything other than the total market value, and I think that's where you are at as well sticking to the land's total market value.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#448

Post by bluGill »

jhanschoo wrote: post #225
bluGill wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones that don't get torn down and replaced with something else. no big deal so long as you allow people to try things and fail. The irrational market isn't a problem for politicians it is for investors: people with money, let them learn their lesson. As for the jobs lost, at least the rich investors paid them while the wash was running, they will move on. The jobs are not high skill so no real loss when they are…

This ignores the opportunity cost of a more productive business throughout the time period of the low efficiency business: one that may hire more workers and provide more value to potential customers in the locality it serves. Under this comparison, the foolishness of an investor has resulted in a comparative net loss for themselves and the community.

Nothing else solves that problem either. Sure you can pass the buck from investors to someone else, but they also don't know what is correct. Everyone is guessing - they often have various evidence but it is never complete enough to be 100% confident in your decisions and so there is always someone guessing.

The difference is here the people making the guess are also taking on the risk of what if they are wrong. When someone else makes the decision they don't have the risk and thus less incentive to get it right. Also that "someone" making the decision tends to be making a lot of decisions and so are unlikely to spend enough time researching it, or alternatively since they don't feel any pain they will spend far too much time on research. (there is no objective way to say what is enough time in research)

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#449

Post by smileysteve »

laughing_man wrote: post #280

A whole article that doesn't touch on the real reason there are so many car washes, laundromats, and nail salons. It's because the cars aren't the only thing being cleaned. If you have a lot of illicit cash that needs to wind up in your bank account, these are the kinds of places you need to own.

Most of the new automated chains are cashless

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#450

Post by smileysteve »

Lammy wrote: post #261

> Such “destination” facilities can offer […] electric vehicle charging This seems like the most likely reason to me. It's a way to hold on to land in a way that normalizes gas-station-like traffic patterns without the "gas station" stigma. They can be easily converted in the future once electric cars are a large enough percentage of cars that everyone will come to accept fueling as a 30-minute activity instead of a…

Possibly, and carwash and charging are value add to the consumer. If you wash your car for 5 minutes after your weekly 30 minute super charge, and before or after every long trip, you're going to have a nice looking car.
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