39 Roads

Here’s a list of retirement value towns from Warren Bland, author and geographer:

Hot Springs, Ark.
Winston-Salem, N. C.
Fayetteville, Ark.
Bowling Green, Ky.
Lawrence, Kan.
Columbia, Mo.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Gainesville, Fla.
San Antonio, Texas
Colorado Springs, Colo.

An article on RealEstateJournal.com on this topic indicated that Bland used the following twelve criteria to produce his rankings of the towns: landscape, climate, quality of life, cost of living, transportation, retail services, health care, community services, cultural activities, recreational activities, work/volunteer activities and crime.  For a definition of “value”, particular emphasis seems to be given to cost of living as it relates to quality of life.  

I think it’s interesting that this list has a couple of major metropolitan areas in Pittsburgh and San Antonio, and that the middle of the country is well-represented by Arkansas, Kentucky, Kansas, Missouri, and Colorado.

College towns are plentiful as the homes of the University of Arkansas, University of Kansas, University of Missouri, University of Florida and others are found on this list.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 3:23 pm and is filed under General, Communities, Issues to Consider, Books and Magazines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.