Four or 5 car washes for a city of 17000 people? That’s 1 per 3000 or so people, of which I’m sure only _some_ actually own cars to wash (vs, say, children). Assuming one uses a car wash for 10 minutes maybe once a month, the 5 car wash locations have capacity for something like 144,000 washes a month. Basically 10x the need for a town of that size.
There’s another car wash being built in my neighborhood right now. There are now 5 within a 10-15 minute drive from my house.
A few years ago, mattress stores were popping up all around my neighborhood. Today most of them are gone. These things seem to come in waves and I’ve never understood what drives it.
One reason to limit the number is to prevent them all dying out - I saw a situation near my house years ago where there was a successful laundromat, another opened nearby and both were doing OK but not amazing, and then a third opened up - and all three ended up dying. There was no laundromat for awhile and finally a new fourth one opened up nearby.
