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Chiming in here. Barbiloo, I really appreciate your thoughts on Green Valley, as it is on my very short list of possible relocation areas. I am also on the younger end of the age scale, so thank you for sharing your experience. I left SoCal 5 yrs ago to retire in Northern AL. Nashville is 2 hrs away and was on our list, but we nixed it due to big city traffic & crime concerns, along with other things specific to us that don't seem relevant to you. As another West coast gal, I have found it quite a difficult transition to be a young, childless, non-religious retiree in the South. The humidity just saps my energy, and I hate the winters even more! I don't care to see snow ever again.
My best friend here (early 40s, conservative politically, but not religious) left for the Boise area 3 yrs ago, lured by the low reported crime rates, drier & cooler weather, and wide open spaces. She has already become disillusioned. She is on acreage, and because of all the farming, there is a huge migrant worker population in her area. I don't know if it is true, but she has told me that the police do not report crimes committed by non-citizens, and that the actual crime rate is much higher than reported, with a lot of gang activity in Nampa that is spreading to Meridian. Her area is heavily Mormon, and her family has really struggled to feel accepted because they are not and don't want to convert. It is definitely not the "live and let live" attitude she had hoped to find. There has also been some "white supremacy" activity out her way, which has made her very uncomfortable. She has lived many places, including Europe, and is well educated. She has been disappointed in the education system at the high school and college level, and she is looking for better educational opportunities elsewhere for her children.
I share her and my stories to illustrate that to truly know a place you have to live there a while. No place is perfect, and I share your angst re: finding a better place. Just wish I knew where to find it, or if it even exists.
Chiming in here. Barbiloo, I really appreciate your thoughts on Green Valley, as it is on my very short list of possible relocation areas. I am also on the younger end of the age scale, so thank you for sharing your experience. I left SoCal 5 yrs ago to retire in Northern AL. Nashville is 2 hrs away and was on our list, but we nixed it due to big city traffic & crime concerns, along with other things specific to us that don't seem relevant to you. As another West coast gal, I have found it quite a difficult transition to be a young, childless, non-religious retiree in the South. The humidity just saps my energy, and I hate the winters even more! I don't care to see snow ever again.
My best friend here (early 40s, conservative politically, but not religious) left for the Boise area 3 yrs ago, lured by the low reported crime rates, drier & cooler weather, and wide open spaces. She has already become disillusioned. She is on acreage, and because of all the farming, there is a huge migrant worker population in her area. I don't know if it is true, but she has told me that the police do not report crimes committed by non-citizens, and that the actual crime rate is much higher than reported, with a lot of gang activity in Nampa that is spreading to Meridian. Her area is heavily Mormon, and her family has really struggled to feel accepted because they are not and don't want to convert. It is definitely not the "live and let live" attitude she had hoped to find. There has also been some "white supremacy" activity out her way, which has made her very uncomfortable. She has lived many places, including Europe, and is well educated. She has been disappointed in the education system at the high school and college level, and she is looking for better educational opportunities elsewhere for her children.
I share her and my stories to illustrate that to truly know a place you have to live there a while. No place is perfect, and I share your angst re: finding a better place. Just wish I knew where to find it, or if it even exists.
Oh well then, I guess we are still searching for the illusive "Heaven on Earth"! Don't count Green Valley out because it does have some positive points, the low crime rate is a good thing. There are churches of every faith here but nobody seems to cram it down. Heavy traffic doesn't exist here. There are a ton of retired teachers so your friend may actually enjoy it here. No humidity here (except during monsoon it can rise up a bit) but the 8% humidity the other day was no picnic either. I have heard the very same things about the immigrants up there in Boise and the Mormons, and the white supremacy (which is also still present today in Florida).
I have no idea where the best schools are in the USA, but I can share that my son attended 11 grades in Northern California and then we moved to Laurel MD for his senior year (I know, that was bad parenting) anyhow he was so far behind their curriculum he would have had to go to an extra year of school just to graduate in MD. Soooo, might be somewhere to look at the schools. In the Seattle area I was reading that high schoolers can attend college classes concurrently and get a 2 yr degree right along with their high school diploma!
We've spent the past several months giving very serious thought to our retirement living. Hours have been spent on the internet looking at various web sites specializing in selecting the 'perfect' place to spend those golden years. Now I'm having some second thoughts.
As noted on other pages of this site we recently visited several age-restricted communities in Arizona. We have chosen a few as our favorites. They are gorgeous. Perfectly manicured community lawns, waterfalls, golf courses with views of mountains and desert. The homes lined up perfectly and no matter the age they all appeared new. Most importantly the residents seemed warm, friendly and happy. So no matter where this post takes me I am not, in any way, denigrating the life style chosen by residents of retirement communities. I am however rethinking whether or not they would live well for us.
My wife and I have, from time to time, thought of having a retirement home similar to the home seen in the film "On Golden Pond". A modest home set on a lakeside where family would come and visit, where life would be beautiful and simple. Our biggest hurdle has been economics. Have you ever priced lakeside property? But as I gave this thought I began to realize part of the attraction of such a setting is the "country feel" this setting promotes. That led me to rethink life in a retirement community.
While retirement communities are well designed with lots of amenities they do appear to us to be very 'suburban', that is, there are rows and rows of similar looking homes on well maintained streets. Residents have limited choices for destinations from home. They leave home (sometimes by golf car), go to the recreation center or golf course then return home. Day after day, back and forth, taking the same route time and time again to the same place. For shopping it's usually to a nearby strip mall where you'll find groceries, home supplies, perhaps a hardware store and maybe a gift shop or two. It's not unlike where I live now (only the weather is much, much better!).
While we found these communities to be very lovely and the people to be very friendly, do we really want to move from one suburb to another? Might we be better off finding a great American small town where we might find that modest home with a yard, white picket fence, garden and perhaps it's a short walk to downtown where there are locally useful businesses? Where is Mayberry?
We're now rethinking our future which might include more of a small town environment. There are a couple places that might be better for us. One is Hot Springs Village in Arkansas where there are about 15-thousand residents spread over 26-thousand wooded acres. Nearby is the town of Hot Springs which has more of a small town feel and not filled with strip malls. The other is perhaps the worlds largest retirement community, The Villages in Florida. While the residential areas of The Villages still look very suburban these areas are built around town squares featuring shops and restaurants. Yes, there are some strip malls there as well but that is not the only source of shopping.
Fortunately we have a couple years, maybe three, before we make a move. We've gone from being absolutely sure we're going to move to a specific Arizona community, to rethinking what we really want to do, what type of life style do we really want. Everything seems to be still on the table.
I'm thinking of co-housing. Splitting a home with friends and relatives. Communal like. Sharing costs. We live in a small town and I like it. The big city is just 20 minutes down the road.
I figured by splitting costs we could even hire people to take us here and there, run our errands etc.
As noted on other pages of this site we recently visited several age-restricted communities in Arizona. We have chosen a few as our favorites. They are gorgeous. Perfectly manicured community lawns, waterfalls, golf courses with views of mountains and desert. The homes lined up perfectly and no matter the age they all appeared new. Most importantly the residents seemed warm, friendly and happy. So no matter where this post takes me I am not, in any way, denigrating the life style chosen by residents of retirement communities. I am however rethinking whether or not they would live well for us.
When my wife and I first started to seriously talk about retirement, we started looking into 55+ communities. And many of them looked very impressive, with all kinds of amenities and a seemingly endless supply of very happy-looking residents. But the more we thought about it, the clearer it became that we just didn't see ourselves in that kind of community. Who knows - perhaps our circumstances will change, and we'll find ourselves pulling out the brochures we saved. For now, though, it just didn't seem like something we wanted to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneR
My wife and I have, from time to time, thought of having a retirement home similar to the home seen in the film "On Golden Pond". A modest home set on a lakeside where family would come and visit, where life would be beautiful and simple. Our biggest hurdle has been economics. Have you ever priced lakeside property? But as I gave this thought I began to realize part of the attraction of such a setting is the "country feel" this setting promotes. That led me to rethink life in a retirement community.
I know *exactly* what you're talking about. After many long conversations, my wife and I realized that we wanted to get away from the rat-race that northern Virginia had become. I had always lived in a city or suburbs, and the same is true for my wife. We wanted to make a complete change, and live in the country.
In the back of my mind there was this annoying voice that kept saying "Be careful what you wish for", but I've been relatively successful in ignoring that voice for most of my life - why change now?
So we sold our house and bought a house on Golden Pond.
Well, no, that's not quite accurate. We sold our house in northern Virginia and bought a house on a lake in Maine for over $100K *less* than the selling price of our Virginia home. It took a fair amount of research and a fair amount of luck, but here we are.
We have a good grocery store within a couple of miles, and a good public library, a Dunkin' Donuts (this IS New England, ya know), a Post Office, the town office, the transfer station (i.e., landfill/dump), etc. We're mid-way between Augusta (the state capital) and Waterville (a fair-sized town) for shopping that we can't do more locally ... although there's a terrific general store not far away that seems to have everything from food to guns to wedding gowns.
We love it here.
And as we met our neighbors - there are six year-round houses on our dirt road as well as a couple of summer camps - we found that, son-of-gun, we had ended up moving into a 55+ community after all!
And as we met our neighbors - there are six year-round houses on our dirt road as well as a couple of summer camps - we found that, son-of-gun, we had ended up moving into a 55+ community after all!
So, is that a good thing, a bad thing, or simply irrelevant in the end?
So, is that a good thing, a bad thing, or simply irrelevant in the end?
It struck me as being ironic. By itself it's neither good nor bad. However, the neighbors are *wonderful*, even to the point of one of the neighbors - whom we had just met - taking us in for the night when the community lost power (we have a back-up generator now).
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