Team USA, Mapped

Where do Olympic athletes come from? As London 2012 winds down, The Atlantic Cities has an answer. Urban trend watcher Richard Florida mapped the 500+ members of Team USA, first by hometown and then by current residence. Here’s Florida on the hometown results:

The largest number - 9 percent (43 athletes) - are from Los Angeles; 3.6 percent (17) are from the Bay Area, 3 percent (14) are from greater New York; and 2.3 percent (11) from Dallas. Four metros claim ten athletes each (2 percent): Tampa, San Diego, Atlanta and Miami.

Smaller metros rise to the top when we control for population. Now, Rochester, New York, leads the way with 1.7 athletes per 100,000 people followed by Great Falls (1.2), Cheyenne (1.1), Fairbanks (1.0), and Boulder (1.0).

Big northern cities like Chicago and Boston are conspicuously absent from the top rankings. Don’t worry, Chicagoans and Bostonians—you can just take a page out of the Canadian playbook, and blame it on the weather.

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