Out of the garage

Maybe a little too close to home: Jon Mooallem checks out self-storage culture in suburban California:

“My parents were Depression babies,” [Tom] Litton told me, “and what they taught me was, it’s the accumulation of things that defines you as an American, and to throw anything away was being wasteful.” The self-storage industry reconciles these opposing values: paying for storage is, paradoxically, thrifty.