Who decides which snacks are in your office’s vending machine? How much is a suburban elm tree worth, and to whom? How did Girl Scout Cookies become a billion-dollar business? In bite-sized episodes, journalist Zachary Crockett looks at quotidian things and finds amazing stories. Join the Freakonomics Radio Plus membership program for weekly member-only episodes of Freakonomics Radio. You’ll also get every show in our network without ads. To sign up, visit our show page on Apple Podcasts or go to freakonomics.com/plus.
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episode 45: 45. Storage Units
Americans love to buy new stuff and hate to get rid of old stuff, which is why storing it all has become a $45 billion business. Zachary Crockett cleans out the garage.
- SOURCES:
- Zachary Dickens, executive vice president and chief investment officer of Extra Space Storage.
- Anne Mari DeCoster, self-storage consultant.
- Kara Kolodziej, self-storage unit tenant.
- RESOURCES:
- "A Fifth Of Americans Rent Self Storage, With Millennials Overtaking Gen Xers In Generational Storage Wars," by Francis Chantree (Storage Cafe, 2024).
- "Lessors of Mini Warehouses and Self-Storage Units Show Significant Financial Gains During COVID-19 Pandemic," by Ben Chandler and Robin Enlow (United States Census Bureau, 2024).
- "The Fate of Oversupplied Self-Storage Markets and How to Pull Back From the Brink," by Frank DeSalvo and David Perlleshi (Inside Self Storage, 2023).
- "A Pandemic Space Race: Self-Storage Roars Back," by Ellen Rosen (The New York Times, 2021).
- "Need to Store That? Booming Self-Storage Industry Says No Problem," by Liam Pleven (The Wall Street Journal, 2015).
- EXTRAS:
- Storage Wars, TV series (2010-present).
- Auction Hunters, TV series (2010-2015).