Top 10 Value Towns for Retirement (dump, housing, raise, taxes)

[GraniteStater]

Pittsburgh still does not have very good air quality at all even with most of the steel mills now closed. Pennslyvania is one of those states that have a TON of coal power plants. It is sort of a remnant of the industrial age when Pennsylvania had a booming population, and had more industry and people than most states.

[goldengrain]

Originally Posted by springpure

I couldn't agree more with you on Pittsburgh as a great town. Rated the most livable city in America in 2007, 10th cleanest city among thousands in the world, a smart city for retirees ( I found this terrific page: Best retirement state. Retire in Pennsylvania- 52 Great Towns - LOW PENNSYLVANIA TAXES, cheap retirement places towns states, frugal retirement, best state for retirees. hot retirement state )

But I came across a great smaller town near Pittsburgh that seems near a perfect place to retire, especially on a tight budget. You gotta read this: Cheap Senior Retirement, Survival retirement, Housing on a Shoestring, cheap frugal retirement, cheap houses, best place to live on Social Securityl (broken link)

Yes, and excellent university and medical teaching school.
A disproportionate number of retired folks because there are not enough jobs for all those students graduating. And all of us old tightwads, on fixed incomes, keep the cost of living down.

The only drawback is the snow, and if you can rent and don't have to shovel, this place should probably be on your list. THere are plenty of small towns around. I have heard it said that Pittsburgh offers a millionaire's lifestyle on a paupers budget. I'm sure it isn't that extreme, but I have heard that it is really built up from the old, coal mining town people seem to remember from yesteryear.

Again, other than the snow, there are a lot of devout Catholics, which is splendid for some people, but perhaps not so for others.

[recycled]

Originally Posted by Plains10

Pittsburgh still does not have very good air quality at all even with most of the steel mills now closed. Pennslyvania is one of those states that have a TON of coal power plants. It is sort of a remnant of the industrial age when Pennsylvania had a booming population, and had more industry and people than most states.

Quite true Plains10. PA, OH, WV, KY, IN, IL generate nearly all of their electric power from coal. Yes they have a few nuke plants in some of those states, but coal is still king. Many of those coal power plants are the older vintage that lack the high tech scrubbers that the newer plants are required to have. Pittsburgh has old coal power plants ringed around the perimeter of the city in all directions. A problem in western PA is that the river valleys tend to trap the air pollution and it doesn't disperse like over the great plains. I like many cities in PA and OH and have considered moving to that area, but would want to find a place that was at least 30 miles away from a coal power plant, preferably not in the prevailing wind direction either.

[Tressa]

We checked into Klamath Falls to retire in, we are leaving Alaska and when they told me that the snow gets up to 8 feet deep and stays until mid to late May we decided that we needed th see for ourselves. We have family in Medford, Grants Pass and Trail, Oregon so we took a visit mid May of 2005 and yep they were right got up to Klamath Falls and there was still snow on the ground, the snow had melted at home in Alaska some weeks before we left so we crossed it off our list.

During the same visit we traveled down into Nevada 100 miles north of Reno and found what we were looking for; they have winterm, not a lot of snow very little rain. Seems that if we were going to leave Alaska in the winter months we sure didn't want 8 feet of snow at our new location.

[PNW-type-gal]

Originally Posted by Tressa

We checked into Klamath Falls to retire in, we are leaving Alaska and when they told me that the snow gets up to 8 feet deep and stays until mid to late May we decided that we needed th see for ourselves. We have family in Medford, Grants Pass and Trail, Oregon so we took a visit mid May of 2005 and yep they were right got up to Klamath Falls and there was still snow on the ground, the snow had melted at home in Alaska some weeks before we left so we crossed it off our list.

During the same visit we traveled down into Nevada 100 miles north of Reno and found what we were looking for; they have winterm, not a lot of snow very little rain. Seems that if we were going to leave Alaska in the winter months we sure didn't want 8 feet of snow at our new location.

They don't get 8' of snow in Klamath Falls proper. The yearly average - 1928-2006 - is 31 inches of snow a year. Crater Lake Park, yeah - they get something like 500"+, but then they are at 7,000'.

We spent most of last winter there and we got hit with two "major" snowstorms, one of which dumped about a foot and a half of snow (over a period of time) and the other one was about 6". There were some minor small snowfall amounts as well, but nothing major and nothing that stayed on the ground more than a couple weeks, max.

[Merlander]

Very interesting thread. This "where should I retire" theme seems to have become a national obsession - everyone's talking about it! Hence all the "best places" lists. Ultimately it's a very personal thing, not something one can decide from a list...although I believe a list can get you started.

Of all the places mentioned, I am most intrigued about Grand Junction. Haven't been there yet. The high desert/mountain scenery sounds nice - kind of where I live now, which is Albuquerque. Btw, we do have a Whole Foods, several Trader Joe's and a zillion Wild Oats here. And the bars on the windows are so you can pull in the cool, evening air with your evap. cooler at night - and still be "secure" [evap. coolers need an exit point in the home]. But it's not a nice look, I agree.

A few semi-original thoughts: I love the great plains, but in the decades ahead, they will bake. Ditto for low desert areas. Also, consider that infectious mosquito-bourne diseases are on the rise. Big time. Hot humid areas, especially with high population densities, will be stricken. Dengue fever, malaria and certain types of encephalitis are the tip of the iceberg. Within a decade, I believe we will see increasing migration to low-humidity, higher altitude places.

Here's a neat quiz my wife found online:

Best Places to Live: Compare the Best Cities & Small Towns for You!

It asks a series of questions, which take roughly 10 minutes to answer. Then gives you a list of 25(?) places that mostly satisfy those criteria, in no particular order. It actually validated our "gut" on several cities we had been talking about...

[CosmicWizard]

Tim

I also used ******, and quite a few places on the lists that I created myself showed up on th quiz results. That is a nice validation! As you say, the places that show up on the **** list mostly satisfy the stated criteria. A few of them however, had me scratching my head. Nonetheless, it is a great tool for getting started. It can be very helpful in narrowing down the places that you might want to visit in person. Until you do an in-person-visit, it's all in your imagination. I tend to agree with the future projections you made, especially a population shift into the low-humidity, higher altitude places. That is going to create a whole new set of problems, especially in regard to water related issues.

blessings...Franco

[nancy thereader]

It's a great site, but I think that the housing prices may be a bit out of date, though.

[Besse]

It seemed to me, a couple of years ago, that Austin, Texas was on every list there was, including one of the best places to retire. Maybe it was "Money" magazine, but I don't remember; it was in several. One of the plus items they listed was availability to higher education (University of Texas is the largest univ. in the country) and a casual atmosphere.

But Austin has grown so much now, with 'burbs", up to 1.5 million people. Last year I saw the opposite, that Austin is considered "the" city for single young men (outdoors, lakes, greenbelts; sports, lots single young ladies).

Either way, as a wife who has a husband with Alzheimer's, I think it is "just about right" in all the important areas. Life near the lake, close to the V.A. for him, and a city that's not *that* big. I have only one complaint,just one: the traffic, if you must go somewhere during rush. Other than that, I wish Austin had made the list, but I think it's just too big now. It's only important that we like it, I suppose. Although I would recommend Austin to anyone who is soon retiring.

[CosmicWizard]

I checked out Austin in the late 80's. It was pretty nice back then and I came away with a positive feeling about the place. But I'm too much of a comfort lover, so I just couldn't imagine living in such a horrendously humid climate with a very intense sun so far south. I crossed it to off my list and I'm glad I did. A metro area of 1.5 million is way too big for my style. I spent 15 years in the Norfolk-Va Beach metro area of 1.5 million people, and it's just too many people crammed together, with everyone using the same roads to get from point A to point B. Sitting in traffic is no fun at all, and I can imagine that Austin traffic can get pretty hectic. If you don't mind the heat and the traffic, Austin wouldn't be bad choice.

blessings...Franco