The sport’s spiritual and commercial home — a place where skateboarding has existed in some form for more than 50 years — it’s slightly surprising that the States has room for growth.
And yet back in 2009, Mark J. Penn, author of the book Microtrends, found that skateboarding was growing at an amazing rate of 166% per year, way more than any other sport or leisure activity. His statistics suggested that in the USA alone, there were over 12 million skaters and over 2,000 public skateparks, while traditional team sports, like football or baseball, are significantly decreasing in participation levels. Skating, it seems, ain’t going anywhere.