All that storage
During our recent transit through the north part of Maine, one detail stood out. There is a lot of construction in this area, and it is all based upon buildings with storage units hundreds and hundreds of them. I know we all need places to keep our stuff, but this seemed to be over the top. As if people had two sets of furniture for each house they swapped in and out on a regular basis Is. Or the largest collection of junk that you ever dreamt of. Not going to fault the people there for what they do with their time and money, but it is not like at home. Where I live the storage unit is rare. Most people just put everything into the garage or the extra barn and are done with it. Of course, that might be what is going on here; this may be a place where people have not got into building barns and now need places to keep all the stuff they have been accumulating. Sales, auctions, whatever. I know we keep too much stuff and like to have things around.
I would love to meet with a local economist and have a chance to ask some pointed questions about whether the economy of the States has evolved. In future I am going to take the time to check the demographic numbers for the State, to find if their population has changed recently and if the economy has gone through some kind of a bump. I also will check to see if something similar has happened in this part of the world.
