Census Estimates for 2005 -> 2010 apportionment

[minionofmidas]

New York City is certainly not declining ... upstate New York is. While I wouldn't call them biased, the Census Bureau's estimates may well be wrong ... IIRC they failed to catch Michigan's seat loss last time around, not because they overestimated Michigan's population but because they underestimated many other states'. They did predict that North Dakota lost population throughout the 1990s, that didn't happen. They also overestimated DC's population loss.

[minionofmidas]

New York City is certainly not declining ... upstate New York is. While I wouldn't call them biased, the Census Bureau's estimates may well be wrong ... IIRC they failed to catch Michigan's seat loss last time around, not because they overestimated Michigan's population but because they underestimated many other states'. They did predict that North Dakota lost population throughout the 1990s, that didn't happen. They also overestimated DC's population loss.

what were we suppose to lose two seats

You were supposed to narrowly escape any seat loss at all.

[minionofmidas]

Putnam 10.3%

Does Charleston have exurbs?  This is the county west of Kanawha.

No, I don't think so. Putnam seems to be growing because it has a strategic location between Charleston and Huntington, which are major cities by the standards of the area.

McDowell  -22.6% deep in S WV coal mining country.  1/5th the population in 5 years.

McDowell County's population decline is the most shocking of any county in the USA. It had 99,000 in 1950 and had 24,000 last year. The strange thing is that its largest town in 1950 (Welch) had only 6 or 7 Thousand people, which means  it must have had lots of rural villages.

Mining villages.

[minionofmidas]

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(1) is pretty much considered an established truth. (2) is something the Census Bureau congratulated itself on in 2000/1, quite loudly too. (5) is certainly possible.