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Greenville is a part of the state of South Carolina!!
It is only fair that retirees who are interested in relocating to Greenville understand what is happening on the state level. After all things like tax burdens, crime rates and high unemployment affect every city in the state.
Unless Greenville is planning on somehow separating itself from the rest of the state!
Definitely something to consider when deciding where to retire: use multiple sources for info.
Exactly. One reason some people "do research" is to determine whether or not a general report about an entire state is completely/accurately representative of a specific town, city, or even a region within that same state. There are many factors behind each report. The fact that a liberal organization like AARP sees and announces the benefits of retirement in Greenville, SC, is likely to be of interest to a liberal-minded person. Life can actually transcend politics.
There are often wide differences among the regions within each state. For instances, coastal areas may have VERY different demographics from upland or mountains areas within the same State. Just because Memphis or the Arkansas cotton Delta have a lot of crime, has little to do with East Tenn. or Mountain Home, Ark.
And as for health, what matters is an individual's personal healthy or unhealthy lifestyle - whether they live in a predominantly unhealthy place like Louisiana, or an overall healthy place like Utah or Colorado - their personal habits are more important (although admittedly local factors such as chemical factories and oil refineries, etc. are damaging even to people who try to live healthy) .
And economically, different States emphasize taxing different things. Like sales tax, real estate tax, motor vehicle tax. Some states have a high tax on one thing, but a low tax on another thing. For instance, Alabama has 8% sales tax, but yet ranks 50th in property tax. So it depends on your individual lifestyle as to tax-wise which state will work better for you.
Anyone who uses state data to pass judgment on a given city or town within that state is a simpleton in my book. Do some traveling and you'll see that every state has great places and horrible places. Do some appropriate research, visit, explore, and draw your own conclusions about an area. A state's overall ranking in a category - good or bad - is going to have almost nothing to do with your experiences or quality of life in a given city within that state.
Economic factors: Cost of living is 97 percent of the national average, unemployment is at 10.8 percent, and the average state and local tax burden is 8.8 percent.
Retirees, by definition, aren't going to be personally concerned with the unemployment rate.
It's interesting that day before yesterday in the Wall Street Journal there was an article about retirees "flocking" to the South Carolina Lowcountry, Charleston in particular. And that's not the only area of the state they're moving to.
There are far, far, far worse places than South Carolina. Additionally, states can be big diverse places. Ranking on an MSA or regional level makes much more sense.
Here's a question: Is attracting retirees a smart, sustainable economic development policy? This is not exactly a cheap demographic to deliver government services to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Art123
Definitely something to consider when deciding where to retire: use multiple sources for info.
Like the AARP.
Who fully endorsed Obamacare.
Can we really trust what those commies think?
I hope my sarcasm meter is broken. Otherwise, this is another example of why this forum can be so unbearable at times.
Assuming because SC is the "4th worst state to retire to" (which is dubious on it's own) that Greenville is a bad place to retire to is moronic.
As an example, Greenville could be the #1 best city in the US to retire to and the rest of SC could be so bad that SC is still one of the worst states.
Or as an opposite example, NY state could be seen as the #1 best "state" to retire to, but that doesn't make NYC a great place to retire lol.
To be fair, most of the 'reasons' listed in the first post don't even apply to Greenville specifically. The crime rate, cost of living, etc.
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