thoughtfulThe same complaints inform me that the center of the continent will be completely frozen out under "no-zone," and that Denver certainly isn't "Central" (although it looks that way from here in California), but neither is Chicago! That is, Denver is "West" and Chicago is "East." And when I asked about Texas, they told me that it's "South." That means "Central" consists of a pretty small area: Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Oh, and possibly western Illinois and Wisconsin, but not Chicago and not Milwaukee.
Some have pointed to the lack of a Minneapolis Worldcon as further evidence of bias against the center. Minneapolis, for instance, is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the US & Canada to not yet host a Worldcon. But like the old joke about Murray and God, you have to buy a lottery ticket in order to win the lottery, and aside from Minneapolis in '73, there are have been no serious bids from Minneapolis. (Which is a shame, really, because it's a nice city with a good looking convention center and relatively close downtown hotels.)
Frankly, I expect "no-zone" will lead to slightly fewer Worldcons in what was the old Central zone (which did include Chicago and Texas; sorry about that, folks), because Worldcons are now more likely to follow general population demographics, and the edges of the continent have more people living there than the center. But accusations that the con will bounce back and forth between Boston and Anaheim are just silly.
Edit, 11:35: Fixed geographic typo pointed out in comments.
