While Americans often are painted with a very broad brush as hoarders, most of us actually aren’t. Experts estimate just 2 percent to 5 percent of the U.S. population officially falls into the hoarding category.
However, there’s no denying that we like to stash our stuff. More than 52,000 self-storage facilities operate through the U.S. In fact, the number of self-storage facilities almost equals the number of Subway, McDonald’s and Starbucks locations in U.S. — combined!
We read with interest some recent news reports trumpeting the fact that the U.S. has more self-storage than McDonald’s restaurants (and that this supposedly makes us a bunch of hoarders). We decided to go a big SpareFoot step farther. In this infographic, we compare the number of self-storage facilities to the number of Subway, McDonald’s and Starbucks locations, as well as a host of other familiar brand names.
Here are the top five on our list. For all of the numbers, check out the infographic below.
- Self-storage facilities: 52,952 (estimated for 2015)
- Post offices: 31,662
- Subway restaurants: 27,062
- McDonald’s restaurants: 14,350
- Starbucks coffee shops: 11,962
Looking for a storage unit? Visit SpareFoot.com.
Infographic by Brian Shreckengast