Meanwhile, this city of nearly 85,000 residents also has the 22nd-most medical centers per 10,000 residents (18.90), cementing its spot near the top of our rankings. Located just south of Clearwater, Largo has the ninth-highest percentage of residents who are 65 or older (24.03%) and an estimated senior tax burden of 14.51%, tied for 20th-best across our entire study. Largo is the second of the five Florida cities in our top 10. Troy also has the 50th-highest percentage of senior residents, 18.33%. Located about 25 miles north of Detroit, Troy has the 16th-lowest unemployment rate of all 247 cities that we studied, 3.2% as of July 2021. Troy, Michigan, has more than 21 medical centers per 10,000 residents, the seventh-most across our entire study. When looking at the whole picture, just over 15% of residents across all 247 cities in our study are in this age demographic.
By comparison, the average for this metric across the bottom 10 cites is just 9.74%. Across the top 10, an average of 24.15% of residents are senior citizens. The percentage of the population that is 65 and older in the top 10 cities is more than double the percentage in the bottom 10 cities. The Sunshine State, which is known as a retirement haven, has five cities in the top 10 and a total of 10 cities in the top 25. It comes as no surprise that Florida is well represented in our rankings, especially near the top. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our final rankings, read the Data and Methodology section below.įlorida cities garner high marks. To determine which small cities are best for retirement, we compared 247 cities (each with 65,000 to 100,000 residents) across eight different metrics: percentage of population above the age of 65, housing costs as a percentage of retirement income, estimated tax burden for seniors, number of retirement communities, number of medical centers, violent crime rate, property crime rate and unemployment rate. Smaller cities often have lower costs of living than big cities, making them ideal for retirees on fixed incomes. While the study’s data showed that retirees are twice as likely to move to a new state than all other movers, more than a quarter of retirees who moved in 2020 chose to leave larger cities and metropolitan areas. Nearly 400,000 people moved for retirement in 2020, a study conducted by HigherAHelper found. To find out which small towns are best to retire in, SmartAsset analyzed data for 247 towns across eight different metrics.