Four or five doesn't sound like much, but the article buries the lede by hiding this fact in a caption: "The omnipresence of the car wash in American life may b

Four or five doesn't sound like much, but the article buries the lede by hiding this fact in a caption: "The omnipresence of the car wash in American life may be underappreciated: There are twice as many car wash outlets as McDonald’s and Starbucks locations combined" and in the article itself "the sector has been expanding at roughly 5% annually, with some forecasts predicting the market to double by 2030. More car washes were built in the last decade than all the preceding years combined." Seems a bit much? The concerns over land use and pollution suggest that the car washes are not paying for negative externalities, removing a natural cap on their proliferation. Smells like market failure. Why wait for the businesses to fail?