03/13/2007 07:27:00 AM 
Here are some more facts from the Self Storage Association.
The self-storage industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the nation - rentable square footage of US self -storage facilities has increased by 741% from 1984 through 2005
The total market capitalization value of the entire US self-storage industry is in excess of $220 billion.
Total self-storage space in the US is now 2.2 billion square feet (as of Q1-2007) [or 206.4 million square meters]. That figure represents more than 72 square miles of rentable self-storage space, under roof or an area more than 3 times the size of Manhattan Island (NY).
Given that people have a lot of stuff and some of it they no longer want- bartering and swapping are now emerging as credible activities.
Sites like Swaptree and Swapthing.
Events like Swap-O-Rama.
The very notion that we are happier when we have more is starting to unravel.
Of course, this is not an idea expressed in mainstream media, but on the pages of environmental publications and by authors such as Bill McKibben.
"In the 20th century, two completely different models of how to run an economy battled for supremacy. Ours won, and not only because it produced more goods than socialized state economies. It also not only because it produced more goods than socialized state economies. It also produced far more freedom, far less horror. But now that victory is starting to look Pyrrhic; in our overheated and n our overheated and underhappy state, we need some new ideas."
What are these new ideas?
If one listens to Reverend Billy, he has one extreme idea. Billy travels around America with his choir, preaching the gospel of his Church of Stop Shopping, educating people about shopping and trying to persuade them to stop.
Morgan Spurlock of Super-Size Me fame, just produced a documentary about his church, which premiered at SXSW this weekend.
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