How the Warehouse Boom Changed the Way America Looks, Lives, and Works

Originally published on October 19, 2022, for Business Insider.

As the US emerged from the Great Recession, cheap real estate and the rise of e-commerce collided to create a warehousing boom.

As Amazon and others began building million-square-foot distribution centers, construction skyrocketed. Since 2011, over 2.3 billion square feet of new warehouse space has come to market — enough room to comfortably stuff 3 ½ Manhattans inside.

Past industrial booms created coal countries, steel cities, and oil towns. Now warehouse boomtowns shoot up in places like California's Inland Empire, Pennsylvania's Lehigh County, and Columbus, Ohio, and the number of warehouse workers has nearly tripled in a decade.

Here, Insider explores how the rise of warehouses and warehouse work has changed the US and its citizens as we became a Warehouse Nation.

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