MOST WV CITIES HAVE POPULATION DRAIN

(06/23/2006)

A wire service story says population drain continues to bleed WVs largest cities. If you live in rural WV, you're well aware the population drain has struck close to home. Calhoun and Grantsville continue to dwindle in numbers, as they have for several decades. West Virginia's two largest cities are shrinking. The US Census Bureau's latest population estimates say Charleston and Huntington each lost about two-thousand residents between 2000 and 2005. The estimates show that Charleston is the state's only city with a population of 50-thousand or more. Huntington's population is estimated at about 49-thousand residents. Nearly all of the state's larger cities suffered population losses during the five-year period - Wheeling, Parkersburg, Weirton, Beckley and Bluefield. Cities that gained population were Morgantown and Martinsburg. Morgantown's population increased by about 16-hundred residents to lead the state. The city now has more than 28-thousand residents. Martinsburg in the Eastern Panhandle grew by a thousand residents to nearly 16,000 people.

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