But once it's no longer an effective loss leader, they might just stop selling gas, which has the same effect. You can see from land use patterns (at least in

But once it's no longer an effective loss leader, they might just stop selling gas, which has the same effect. You can see from land use patterns (at least in the West Coast North American cities I'm familiar with) that at a certain land value the retail gasoline business no longer pencils out, or at a minimum it becomes more of a natural monopoly. Intersections in gentrifying neighborhoods that used to have two or three gas stations increasingly have one or none. Like drive-thru restaurants and banks, they're pretty effective at sabotaging walkability, so I wouldn't be too sad to see them go (or transition into just convenience stores).