The personal storage industry rakes in $22bn each year, and it’s only getting bigger. Why?
I’ll give you a hint: it’s not because vast nations of hoarders have finally decided to get their acts together and clean out the hall closet.
It’s also not because we’re short on space. In 1950the average size of a home in the US was 983 square feet [3]. Compare that to 2011, when American houses ballooned to an average size of 2,480 square feet – almost triple the size.
And finally, it’s not because of our growing families. This will no doubt come as a great relief to our helpful commenters who each week kindly suggest that for maximum environmental impact we simply stop procreating altogether: family sizes in the western world are steadily shrinking, from an average of 3.37 people in 1950 to just 2.6 today.