Coincidentally, this is something I have researched just last week for my area. I would love to store boxes upon boxes of things that I will need in another two years (eg. baby clothes), will sell eventually, or plain don't want around[0].

Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the concept of self-storage presented here, quite similar in spirit to my local self-storage providers (henceforth: SSPs), is not reconcilable with my use-cases and fundamental needs.

To wit: All SSPs that I found were located on the outskirts of town. "Industrial estate" would describe it well. This calls for car ownership (or rental, at least) and huge transfer volumes.

But I want to spirit away a smallish box every month or so. I would like to carry it (perhaps in a bicycle trailer) around the corner. In short: I want those SSPs to be as ubiquitous as libraries.

Now, are there cities were a system not unlike to the one outlined above exists? If so, are hacker/maker spaces similarly well-distributed?

[0] Books, chiefly by virtue of their tactility, belong solidly into the latter category, as non-intuitive as it may sound: these cellulose blighters are everywhere and frankly cumbersome to circumnavigate by now.