Census Estimates for 2005 -> 2010 apportionment

[Filuwaúrdjan]

While I wouldn't call them biased, the Census Bureau's estimates may well be wrong ...

^^^

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who the hell moves to West Virginia??

People who left West Virginia to get some work and all that and who have come back?* Maybe not many now but hopefully in a few years... You also have the Eastern Panhandle.

As for the house prices thing... a lot of the new people in a lot of states will be living in new housing. More housing usually lowers the prices.
As for the metro areas, I suspect we're seeing a mix of speculation/investing, more subletting (and private renting in general?), lack of new housing (?) and so on...

*A trend we're starting to see over here in some of our old industrial areas.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As the mining industries either declines or get more mechanized, the number of jobs in the area falls a lot and, unless new jobs are created to replace them, people just leave the area to find work and generally don't come back.
There were similer (not quite so shocking, but still awful) declines in mining areas in the U.K in the early 20th century. I think the population of the Rhondda came close to halving at one point.