What population is ideal for a town to retire to?

[s1alker]

A small town or a rural place would have little to offer me at retirement

-Little to no choice of medical specialities
-No work available if I decided I wanted to work a little, and whatever work there is pays too little to be worth my time
-Once those walks around the town or by the lake gets stale, there is little else to do.
-If I can't drive for whatever reason, I'd be SOL because such places are completely car dependant.
-Many small places actually do have quite a bit of crime because they tend to be economically depressed. The small town I grew up in had wild packs of bored teenagers wandering the streets causing a ton of trouble late at night.

That's why I am concerned about my father who wants to retire from the big city to a off-the-grid rural area in a few years. As a city man he has never done anything outdoors, never hunted or fished his entire life.

[Aqua Blue]

I have lived in three towns of around 100k. It is the size I like. Enough shops for this unshopper. I do like having Costco/Sam's, whatever. I like having a bigger home improvement store.

It seems like this size town has fairly good health care. I am not really into living in a big city just so I could be treated, especially as a senior, for some disease. I tend to be more when it's your time it's your time, none of us are getting out alive.

It seems like this size town gets pretty good community concert shows, not the big hits, but reasonable good ones. They all have had pretty good community theater.

I tend to travel to a bigger metropolitan area once or twice a year for bigger shows etc. I wouldn't want to put up with the traffic, crime etc to live in those areas constantly. I found for myself that all towns/city's get boring to a degree. It could be the place or just my wonderlust.