When it comes to city planning, changes aren't made unless there's already a trend. A town isn't going to just decide out of the blue to ban new gas station construction unless there was already a trend away from ICE vehicles.

Deciding to ban something you don't like and then actually going through with it because you're rich enough to afford to shoot yourself in the foot or the people negatively affected are small/powerless enough is "wealthy suburb chock-full-o'-busybodies" 101.

Banning gas stations is just the California equivalent of a suburb in North Carolina banning a litany of alcohol related businesses.

I wasn't saying it's right or wrong, in fact, I think outright banning new gas stations may make life difficult for the working poor, who do not buy new vehicles, and are less likely to be able to switch to an electric, but that's not really what I'm talking about here.

I'm just saying that the trend has to already exist for a municipality to change something.

That describes so many HN articles, though. ;) They are not my favorite either because the curiosity is based on such wild speculation.

Reminds me of the old Willie Nelson song, One in a Row.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXLfHJ6fIJo

And, since every trend must begin with a single data point, maybe it is a new trend. We just won't know anything about the direction until we accumulate more data points.