What City has the most FIRST teams?

[JamesBrown]

I have seen many people talking about what states have the most teams, how about what city?

The most in the North East I believe is Worcester Mass with 7 (6 of which are rookie or second year, the other is a founding team.)

Are there any other cities with more?

[Pat Fairbank]

Counting the number of teams in a city might be a bit trickier than counting those in a state, depending on whether or not you count suburbs. For example, there are 20 teams in the city of Toronto, but several more exist within the greater metropolitan area.

Let's just restrict the count to the teams showing that city as their location, then.

[Jon Jack]

San Diego has several teams 7 teams

812, 1266, 1372, 1527, 1538, 1572, 1622

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

Counting the number of teams in a city might be a bit trickier than counting those in a state, depending on whether or not you count suburbs. For example, there are 20 teams in the city of Toronto, but several more exist within the greater metropolitan area.

Let's just restrict the count to the teams showing that city as their location, then.

In the case of Toronto, we usually define it as the teams within the Metropolitan Area, i.e. any team who's postal code starts with an "M". Following this definition there are 23 teams from Toronto. (The three extra teams have listed their city via the old designations of the smaller boroughs which make up Toronto)

If we look at the Greater Toronto Area, we count that their are 34 teams.

[Alexander McGee]

I would hazard to guess that Oakland County (and surrounding) Michigan has the most teams. I run into other teams doing demonstrations or fundraisers all the time. I loved trying to collect cans in the local subdivision, and having them refused because "my daughter is on Las Gorrilaz and they are doing one next week". Get that allll the time.

-Alex

[lukevanoort]

Wow, I had no idea Toronto had so many teams. I wonder if any of my cousins are on one. Unfortunatly down here in NC Greensboro and Raleigh are tied at a measly two teams. Unless 435 doesn't reorganize then Raleigh will only have one.

[SURVIVORfan44]

What happened to 435? I noticed that they hadn't signed up for the VCU regional, or the Palmetto Regional. This is very odd since they are one of the best teams at VCU.

[Andrew Blair]

WooooEEEE! We're goin' strong at ONE team! Now don't you big sity folk come 'round propositioning 'round these parts, ya hear!

[Grumble ON] 'taint hardly 'nough muskrat for one team...[/Grumble OFF]

[Mark McLeod]

I count 33 in New York City.

[EricH]

Hmm...If you restrict this to just the city that is listed, a lot of teams cross city boundaires, and also some cities have large metro areas that still call themselves by the name of the city. I don't think that will work...not to mention that some teams give their location as an area, not a city...

That said, L.A. area has...AAH, I lost count! Probably about 35 in the area, and that's just active. (Throw in about 5 dormant teams for good measure.) If you just count the ones that give their location as L.A, you only get a couple, but most of the other cities in the L.A. area have at least one team.

Only one in the actual city of Los Altos... I believe that there are a bunch in the whole bay area though... some of it really does seem like a single city sometimes... It's hard to tell the borders they're so close.

[Ashley Christine]

I think the Rochester area has 15 teams now, maybe more because of rookies, im not too sure.

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by SURVIVORfan44

What happened to 435? I noticed that they hadn't signed up for the VCU regional, or the Palmetto Regional. This is very odd since they are one of the best teams at VCU.

I heard that Debbie Kellogg, the school staff member on the team left, and that they are still trying to organize without her. The still have some time left, though. We'll see if they make it, but even if they don't this year I expect they'll be back next year. They've done too well for too long to just die.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

I heard that Debbie Kellogg, the school staff member on the team left, and that they are still trying to organize without her. The still have some time left, though. We'll see if they make it, but even if they don't this year I expect they'll be back next year. They've done too well for too long to just die.

I checked the list for Palmetto today--they're official here.

As for the original topic, I count five teams in the Columbia area (1293, 1336, 1398, 1618, 1650). No local rookies yet, although we have four more for South Carolina, bringing the total to 25 (I think--the list online is leaving out some local teams).

[J Flex 188]

Part of the difference in the number of teams versus the actual population size is the make up of the respective school board systems. Compare the population of Toronto (Toronto Proper including the five previous municipalities that merged in the late 1990s) boasts a population of about 2.5 million people. The Greater Toronto Area includes more northerly regions like Markham, Richmond Hill, Durham and York. With this taken into consideration, the GTA area swells to around 5 to 5.5 million people.

A quick search of New York City's population reveals it be around 8.1 million, these two cities both boast strong technological economies and serve as arguably, one of the most important focal points of business in their countries. Yet they have a similiar number of FIRST teams.

Toronto public schools tend to be in the area of an average population of about 1300 students, while many schools are located within 5 to 10 minutes driving distance of each other. Woburn CI for example has at least 4 schools within a 10 minute driving radius, 1 of which was a former FIRST team (1088 SWATT). From my own experiences, American schools tend to be much larger by comparison, with populations closer to 2-3000 per school. But the trend is also being reversed in the GTA with some schools like UHS (a former competitor) and RHHS boasting higher populations. Then there are also the number of private schools and academies to take into consideration.

This is actually a very interesting question to pose, since we always hear about most FIRST teams by state or province, not usually by city.