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Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
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Let’s be honest: Some U.S. cities that loyal locals will tell you are great places to live — with lots of friendly people, beautiful scenery and fun things to do — may not be the greatest places for retirees.
Whether you’re actually retired or closing in on your non-working years, you have to weigh several pros and cons when choosing a community to retire in. Do you want outdoor activities, great restaurants and sunshine year-round? How important are the arts?
A city’s dizzying array of cultural offerings and high walkability — 2 factors Bankrate used to assess suitability for seniors — could be offset by high taxes and other costs that will pose challenges if you’re on a fixed income.
We scored nearly 200 cities on a range of factors. Some cities wound up at the bottom because of sleety winters, expensive medical care or relatively high crime rates. Others scored low for health care quality, cultural opportunities or the overall well-being of residents.
And in several cases, we noticed that neighboring cities achieved nearly the same score since they were drawing from the same regional statistics. In those cases, we ranked them together as a combined area.
Following are the bottom 10 cities for retirement.
Sources: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; HealthView Services; Gallup-Healthways; the Council for Community and Economic Research; FBI; Tax Foundation; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; WalkScore.com; Western States Arts Federation
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