Population deviations in Senate map; Lehigh Valley
Looking at the preliminary State Senate map, districts in southwest PA are underpopulated while districts in southeast PA are overpopulated. Given the current population trends with Philadelphia suburbs gaining population while the Pittsburgh metro area is losing population, this disparity will only get worse over the coming decade. Please address this by tweaking the map to minimize population deviations. Furthermore, the redistricting of the Lehigh Valley seems to have been designed for incumbent protection. Some odd decisions have been made: Allentown is split, and the larger portion is combined with suburban/rural parts of Northampton County, while rapidly growing Lehigh County suburbs (South Whitehall, Upper/Lower Macungie, and Upper Saucon Townships) are combined with rural Berks County closer to Reading. I believe that it would make more sense to place the aforementioned Lehigh County suburbs together with the city of Allentown in one district.