Good work! What’s really interesting to me is that Pennsylvania isn’t one of the deeper blue states but beat out deeper blue NYC in the 200 mile data I posted this evening, not because of the members IN the state but because of the ones NEAR it.
I’ll make sure that Bill Hall and Pat Knight know about these charts.
Well, it could also be that Pennsylvania’s chess players are heavily concentrated in the eastern part of the state, and that when you average in the more Ohio-like western part, the “blueness” is diluted. I’m sure the same thing is going on with downstate vs. upstate New York.
Perhaps, but there’s a pretty good pool of players in the 200 miles around Pittsburgh, better than around Rochester NY:
[code] city Members 12/below 13-15 16-19 20-24 25-64 65+
Pittsburgh 6899 2206 718 527 217 2634 597
[/code]
When I looked at scholastic/youth/young adult membership and population in the 940 or so defined metro areas in April 2007 (using 2005 population estimates, which wer the most recent available from the Census Bureau at the time), Brownsville TX was far and away the leader. Here are the top 20:
[code]MSA Area 2005 Pop Members Per 10K
Brownsville-Harlingen, TX 387717 1542 39.8
Los Alamos, NM 19022 64 33.6
Bloomington-Normal, IL 161202 354 22.0
Pierre, SD 19761 37 18.7
Brunswick, GA 100613 158 15.7
Ames, IA 80145 123 15.3
Murray, KY 35421 50 14.1
Taos, NM 31832 41 12.9
Crossville, TN 52344 67 12.8
Lake Charles, LA 192316 240 12.5
Grants, NM 27481 34 12.4
Corpus Christi, TX 415810 426 10.2
Statesboro, GA 63207 61 9.7
Rapid City, SD 118763 102 8.6
Farmington, NM 126473 105 8.3
Alice, TX 41131 34 8.3
Central City, KY 31561 26 8.2
Chico, CA 215881 171 7.9
Laredo, TX 231470 169 7.3
Kingsville, TX 30755 22 7.2[/code]
This is an analysis that should probably be updated.
BTW, for anyone who’s interested in benchmarking the success of his local club, the national averages are 10.9 adults and 10.9 kids per 100,000 residents. (No, that’s not a typo – the averages are the same, at least to three sig figs.)
Remember that the charts are percentages. Thus the deep blue in less populous VT in NYC’s radius is overwhelmed by the parts of the paler but more populous VA and MD (and western PA/eastern OH) that Philly’s radius extends farther to.
For looking into methods that may be copied for use elsewhere, the charts may be very useful (it would be great to get all youth as dark blue as VT or SD). For looking into where to place tournaments, raw numbers would be more useful than percentages.
I agree, which was why we ran the analysis by metropolitan area in 2007. FWIW, Sacramento CA, which had just hosted a spring national scholastic, ranked rather low, even after taking into account any new local members signed up at the tournament. (153 scholastic/youth/young adult members in a metro area with over 2 million.)
BTW, when I did the April 2007 list there were 350 metro areas which had NO scholastic, youth or young adult USCF members in them, two of them had a total population over 250,000 (Shreveport LA and Spartanburg SC.)
The most recent list (generated in November 2007) is in the BINFO system as BINFO 200702383.
BINFO 200702382 had a similar analysis for adult membership types.
I just downloaded the latest metropolitan/micropolitan data file from the Census Bureau, released last month (population estimates as of July 2009.)
I’ll work on seeing if I can update the MSA analysis in the next week. (I may have some ZIP code data issues to deal with, as our ZIP code database hasn’t been updated since last fall due to cost-cutting measures.)
What stood out to me was how unmistakably regional the overall map and, especially, the adult map were. Based on these maps, I would conclude that youth participation is primarily a combination of strategy, resources, personalities and will, while adult participation hinges on culture.
That being said, I’m trying to come up with an explanation of New Mexico’s outlier-ness. Los Alamos, maybe?
Note to Chess Life editors and writers: Every outlier is a potential article, from chess among scientists at Los Alamos to the chess culture of Washington, D.C., to the plucky Natchez (Miss.) Chess Club, which has run seven events since last fall and seems to be anchored by one family with a lot of kids. Heck, if I had the money to travel, I’d write 'em.
So, the upshot to all these maps is that Rehoboth Beach would be a wonderful location that could draw, minimally, from PA, NJ, NY, MD, DC, and VA
Except that transportation could still be a hassle because of the distance from the nearest major airport (Philadelphia), and we don’t know about potential sites and hotel rates. (Hotel rates and space considerations, including costs, are probably what will hurt potential national scholastic event sites the most. Are the folks there willing to aggressively bid for the event?)
Is it worth considering? Sure. Is it going to happen in the next couple of years? Probably not, because the USCF is trying to get the events booked up several years in advance, in part because of numerous demands that we do that, and most of the spring nationals for the next 2-3 year years are either already announced or near the contract signing point.
BTW, here’s a breakdown of where the spring nationals have been by state since 2000:
AZ: 3
CA: 1
CO: 1
FL: 1
GA: 2 (including 2010)
KY: 2
MN: 1 (2010)
MO: 2
NC: 1
OH: 2 (including 2010)
OR: 1
PA: 2
TN: 4
TX: 3
WI: 2
The Youth Action is in New Jersey next November, I suspect how well it does will be watched carefully by the USCF office as a harbinger of how other national scholastic events might do in that region.
You seem intent to ignore the fact that this is a beach resort community that hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country, and around the world make their way to every summer. How do all those people get here do you think?
And you seem to ignore the fact that what people are willing to do when going on VACATION is different from what they do the rest of the year.
Taking a team of players to a national scholastic championship is not a vacation!
Taking a family of kids on a vacation is not a vacation. 
USCF does National Scholastics in Orlando not only because it is a family resort location, but because it has great hotels and air service. Air to bus locations (and I would include Daytona Beach in Florida in this) aren’t going to work for a National Scholastic. The parents and chaperones aren’t at Magic Kingdom during the rounds, that is for sure.
If we are assuming that all chess players are cheap and lazy, then you are right. The people I meet every summer from Russia, Japan, Bulgaria, Spain, Ireland, California, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and last year Hawaii,must be extremely exceptionally wealthy and wizards of travel.
Or between rounds for that matter.
That’s why I said it should be combined with a family vacation. If you go away for a week or two anyway, why not vacation at the beach during the Nationals?
Very few people go to Nationals and spend a week in that location. Most of them fly in on Thursday and hightail it out of there on Sunday. These tournaments are held during school time, not in the summer.
If Rehobeth Beach wanted to bid on the US Junior Open, a summer event, I am sure they would be more than welcome. Then marketing the beach and its scenery to teen and college-age male chess players probably would help attendance.
I guess you have never been to a National Scholastic or are not aware of the school calendar. These events are during the school year. The Junior High is right now. The beach in Delaware doesn’t sound so great in early April. The High School is next weekend. The Elementary is Mother’s Day weekend in May. The grade level is in December and the National Youth Action is in November. None of those sound like the time to hit a northern beach - nor is it possible to vacation then.
The schedules always start on Thursday with side events. Most people come in on Thursday. Some do not arrive until Friday morning. All generally head out Sunday evening or Monday to minimize the amount of school missed. The parents are usually running around getting meals and otherwise providing creature comforts for the kids. There are 2 rounds on Friday (afternoon and evening), 3 on Saturday (morning, afternoon and evening) and 2 on Sunday (morning, afternoon). Having attended these with my son from the time he was in 4th grade until he graduated HS, the only time I had to do anything else was when he was an older HS student and could pretty much take care of himself.
Or course the US Junior Open is a much smaller event than the scholastics.
Yesterday it reached the upper 80s here.