Posted on 11/12/2023 6:08:40 PM PST by matt04
Ask anyone in Massachusetts: the best place to live out your last few years on Earth is Worcester. Or Springfield.
This week, U.S. News & World Report released its ranking of Best Places to Retire, and the only two to crack the top 100 in Massachusetts were Worcester and Springfield. Keep in mind this is a list that ranked Harrisburg, PA, No. 1, and put Flint, Mich., ahead of cities surrounded by natural beauty, culture and attractions like Boise and Las Vegas.
This year’s list is based on the evaluation of the nation’s 150 most populated metropolitan areas based on how well they meet Americans’ expectations for retirement. Measures used in the evaluation were affordability, health care, desirability, retiree taxes, the job market and overall happiness.
Worcester ranked No. 35 overall for its proximity to good healthcare — the sprawling UMass medical school campus is located in the city — and relatively cheap housing, although that stock is on the decline. U.S. News also wrote very generously about Worcester's cultural scene. Keep in mind, Worcester doesn't have a single movie theater.
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Springfield ranked No. 39 overall, and got higher marks than Worcester for housing affordability. It's also got the basketball museum, a casino and a nice river.
If those two cities don't pique your interest, Pennsylvania is apparently a retirement paradise. Cities in the state oddly dominated the top five in this year’s list, and PA had seven metro areas in the top 10:
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Reading, Pennsylvania Allentown, Pennsylvania Scranton, Pennsylvania New York City York, Pennsylvania Daytona Beach, Florida Youngstown, Ohio Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Ann Arbor, Michigan
(Excerpt) Read more at patch.com ...
Weston would be a good place to retire...ditto Dover and a few other towns. Problem is you've gotta be worth millions to live there.
Retirees don’t want to negotiate snow in their driveways, roads. They don’t want the taxes they Taxachussets takes from them. They don’t want to deal with neighbors who will call them the new people for generations and treat them as such unwanted
So…No sale.
Retiring to Massachusetts is like a stop in Purgatory.
Why bother? You’re on fire already....
Yeah…no. I was born and raised in Massachusetts and live here now. Pretty much avoid going to Worcester and Springfield as much as possible. Also Lawrence, Brockton, Dorchester, etc. Plenty of dumps in Mass. Other than visiting my brother while he was at Holy Cross, absolutely no reason to visit Worcester…
York, PA has cheap housing.
Harrisburg is also fairly cheap, at least by East Coast standards.
They are probably low priced for a reason.
Worcester is full of triple deckers. There is a small upscale area to the west to northwest. My neighbor’s eldest daughter lives in Rutland, a town to the northwest.
Springfield is mainly a dump I believe. The main upscale area is Longmeadow to the south.
If you don’t mind being away from the city, Prescott, AZ isn’t bad. Nice, clean, conservative. Very pretty in northern AZ, so no heat issues in the summer. Quiet except for downtown’s whiskey row which can get pretty raucous at night but isn’t a problem if you live outside of hearing range.
I grew up in Massachusetts. Fled in 1977, and I ain’t NEVER going back. I won’t even drive thru it to get to Maine.
“I have no idea where people come up with these rankings.”
It’s apparently mainly for comparatively cheap housing.
It is my understanding that Ann Arbor is not cheap. University towns tend to be expensive.
What an ugly pair of towns and depressing area to live in. I guess if you want to retire, get depressed, and die quickly, maybe.
Along the same line, NY City is a paradise, and San Francisco is heavenly with painted brown streets and affordable sidewalk housing, and LA is Shangri-La and Chicago is one 0f the safest places to live.
I’m thinking of moving back north to NY City and leaving Florida because he beaches are always full of people and the sun is always shining; iow, pure hell.
The only reason to go to Springfield is the Big E. Or the various events held at those facilities when the Eastern States Exposition is not running
My wife and daughter attend dog shows there regularly.
The last time I went with her I said I would only go IF we stayed at the relatively new MGM hotel.
The only other things in town are the basketball hall of Fame and Six Flags just south of there
Springfield has a murder rate that is twice the national average. If you are going to retire there, bring lots of Kevlar
Springfield for retirement…OMG
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Lots of Portuguese in MA……..why call them aliens.
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IMO no place east of the Appalachians or west of the Sierras/Cascades is worth a damm.
The MGM parking lot has a history of crime—you can do a web search for a variety of articles.
I visited the casino when it first opened—and never went back—not at all what I expected from MGM.
Springfield’s motto should be:
Hey we aren’t as bad as Fall River.
I live an hour north of Worchester.
I think I went there once in the last 38 years of living in southern NH.
Nobody wants to retire in Worcester or Springfield.
Even when Springfield was nice back in the 1950s and 1960s it was a mob town
I went there with my brother in law Johnny once. He took me to his old neighborhood where he was a numbers runner bag kid.
Then he showed me where Frankie got popped. Hey, you got a problem with that?
Agreed. I’m frequently in the area. Sure, there’s a few nice areas of Springfield, but overall besides MGM most of the downtown area is something people generally avoid. Even the “nice“ area near MGM has been struggling to have a main street with small stores in it.
The suburban town surrounding Springfield, such as Longmeadow, Wilbraham, Hamden are nice areas.
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