US state and local politics make much more sense when you realize that in any given area, the two most powerful political interests are likely to be car dealerships and real estate developers.
An interesting thing to me, is that car dealerships start off in what's usually the edge of town (where lot space is cheapest), but are usually the last thing to go when a city expands and the area around the car lot gentrifies. It's an odd effect, that I assume has to do with the dealership managing to keep its rent down by hook or by crook.
Now that you mention it, that certainly does seem to be a pattern.
Perhaps, as a class that get a lot of practice in price negotiation, their land tends to be the most expensive to buy, so it's the last to be sold for development.
This makes me wonder if there's clear statistical trends in municipal politics that pop out if you graph cities by number of car dealerships.
The information would be especially interesting near zero. I imagine, though, that it'd be hard to find a city in North America without any car dealerships, so it'd probably be easier to do an analysis on European countries with some cities that don't have cars at all.
They buy a ton of ad space, so they have outsized political power... Screw with the candidate, the ads get cut back.
With cartel pricing, they also employ a lot of people with decent pay and little qualification. Dealerships are great places to dump political and other friends who need s job.
