Market demand. They get built because the capitalists think that people want them to be built. If people don’t want them to be built, they would go out of business and shut down.

But to answer your question, my city is sprawling and growing vertically at the same time. For the new neighborhoods, yeah, gas stations, bank branches and other such businesses do get constructed in the central commercially zoned part.

Yes. Banks and gas stations.

Also, self-storage facilities and car washes. And churches.

You know what they’re not building? Mixed use, walkable anything.

My village has a moratorium on new banks and is actually using eminent domain to take over a building from one. I have not seen any new gas stations going up. If you think it’s excessive it’s time to get involved in your municipal government, there are no doubt public hearings on zoning approvals where enough loud voices can stop or slow down overbuilding. That’s what happened here with banks. We have limited real estate and people got fed up.

No new gas stations, but there are enough of them. If anything new EV chargers. Banks are closing.

In my town, the only new businesses are car washes, vape shops, and drive thru coffee franchises.

We had plenty of all three to begin with, but now there’s far more than anyone could ever need.

A bunch of gas stations and car washes. Car culture in my area is out of control. Feels like half the city’s land area is dedicated for parking…

For a while it was Chase banks specifically. Looks like they maxed out on those. What I see now are car washes, self storage facilities (a seemingly disproportionate number of), and car parts stores.

My city is building anything but what humans want. Benches, parks, trees are not built

High col area means buildings are disappearing and being redeveloped as condos around me.

Gas stations are slowly dying as the land gets too expensive to justify a low traffic gas station, and increasing EV popularity is further shrinking their appeal.

Banks seem to be infiltrating stupid places now, like fucking indoor shopping malls.

There’s nothing like seeing a fucking BANK to make you not interested in visiting an area. If I don’t bank there I will never walk in. If I do bank there I will walk in once or twice a year. Such a shitty use of high visibility retail space.

One wing of my dying mall is entirely banks, dentists, and cell phone stores. Why would anyone want to stroll through that?

This can happen when companies are making massive profits but want to hide them.

i.e. if they’re getting government subsidies, either direct ones, or indirect policy support, then they risk losing it if they post record profits and draw attention to their lack of need. So instead they will increase capital spending: buy up more properties, renovate their stores with nicer fixtures etc. On paper this keeps their profits down as their costs have gone up, however, in reality their overall valuation has increased because they now own all these assets that they can use, lease, or sell in the future (assuming they didn’t buy junk).

Some of it is also just normal expansion. If a new neighbourhood is built, banks and gas stations are often the first to try and get in. For gas stations it’s to get the ideal corner, and for banks it’s because people often switch banks when they move houses to whatever’s closest, and then never switch again.

Some of it can be specific government policy. The current US government has crafted policy to boost the gas powered vehicle market for years to come, which may give more confidence in building gas stations and having them be profitable long term.

And some of it can just be normal market adjustments. i.e. they stopped building banks thinking that everyone going digital would eliminate them, but their projections were wrong and they’re seeing more people then expected who still want to go into a physical location and talk to a person, so now there’s a wave of buildout.

Also, yeah the landgrab aspect is real. It would work differently for gas stations and banks, but look up the history of McDonald’s, they’re mostly a real estate company: https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burger/

Car washes and tire shops.

The only time I have seen new service stations is when a new area is being developed. Generally 5 years after because of how much work goes into getting an OK for a station.

As physical money is becoming less used I have seen fewer banks. My own bank has left my town entirely and is now a dentist.