well i dont know about the rest of the Nth east but for PA, we started a deer management plan a few years ago.. and as you can tell just on this post PA has a lot of hot and cold areas.. the hot spots are mostly around the 2 big cities and also private land in the state that doesnt have many hunters hunting it.. the good thing about PA is we have a lot of public land to hunt than most states, but when the plan started the does got hit really hard in some areas so its really tough hunting.. put that w/ the things you have stated like some areas that need timbered and sometimes the snow and w/ one million hunters in PA alone, it tends to hurt the herd in a lot of areas.. but then there are areas around pittsburgh or some private farm land that people see 100 deer a day.. so its pretty crazy here..