Urban/Suburban/Rural Retirement?

[yakers]

As we get nearer retirement (my wife retires in a few weeks and I expect to work about 18 month more until younger son starts college) we are playing with ideas/dreams VS realities. I am originally a city boy (Chicago) and my wife grew up in a somewhat suburban Southern California environment. We live in a nice place, Pasadena CA, we would like to leave the smog and congestion but would like to keep the services, restaurants and entertainment as much as possible. Neither of us has lived in a rural world except for wonderful vacations. My ideal retirement world would be living in a place where I *could* walk to things if I wanted and maybe good public transportation as well. I lived in London for some years and that suited me. I also like Seattle, SF and Portland. But none of these are cheap. I have found a few small towns that I could live in like Nevada City, CA, that are small but progressive (no bullet holes through the deer crossing signs). It seems to me like a good small town near enough a city might be the way to go.

Any city folks decide to take up country life? Are the suburbs to be avoided in any case? All I’m looking for is a small town/urban neighborhood that is safe & affordable where I can walk to things, with public transportation, good services and maybe good weather too? Too much to ask? Access to local kayaking water is a major plus. For a while I was thinking about Madison WI but then remembered winter.

 

[REWahoo]

I have found a few small towns...that are small but progressive (no bullet holes through the deer crossing signs).

Progressive? Maybe they're just lousy shots...

 

[wildcat]

I still recommend college towns - especially those with med schools.  I spent 2 yrs away in grad school and the town had about 100,000.  Very affordable, good public transportation, great health care facilities and public parks.  It was actually nice to see some houses that were not designed from some mass produced model.  I didn't have an airport which was a pain at times but I was 1 1/2 - 2 hours from two good sized cities + there was a shuttle service to either one.

Weather was not so good but everything else was great.  Can you find anything within 4 hours of one of the cities you like for an affordable price?

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

No accounting for taste, but we finally acknowledged that we were city people, and that a cheaper semirural life just would not make us quite as happy. We would rather live in or near the city and do a little traveling now and then to get a dose of "the country." The alternative it to live in a nice country setting but drive everywhere including lots of city trips for many of the things we enjoy.

I have no doubt that our decision will cost us. Then again, we have tons of friends within a few miles, tons of great, cheap ethnic restaurants and stores, be at the beach in half an hour, do lots of city stuff, etc. That's just us and I am sure it cuts both ways.

No "right" or "wrong" here, but it was liberating finally acknowleding what we really enjoy, and prepare for it accordingly.

The ones I worry about are the life-long city dwellers who have a romantic notion that suddenly at retirement they want to move to Mayberry. High risk decision, in my view, but hey... each to his/her own.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

while i appreciate the convenience of urban life for when i really need that odd shaped lightbulb and can find it within 5 minutes of shopping, i really don't need a drug store on every corner, a restaurant in every fifth storefront or a starbucks on every third block.

my concern with going country now is later in life, when i'm in my 70s or 80s if i make it there. might be nice then to be within a reasonable drive to an emergency room. also of concern is if i buy in the country now and enjoy that for a while i might not be able to afford an urban dwelling later. i suppose i can always rent a place.

i really like wildcat's idea of a college town. the med school idea is great. i'd try finding one with a teaching hospital. i've been to shands in gainesville and jackson in miami, both very impressive.

 

[sailor]

I second recommendation for college towns.
How about Athens, GA?

 

[Martha]

I like the city, would prefer to move to Mpls/St. Paul, near most of my good friends. I would like to be near a library, good parks, and have good walking and biking right out the door.

Greg likes a more rural setting or small town. Preferably off the grid.

Green acres is the place to be
Farm living is the life for me
Land spreading out,
so far and wide
Keep Manhattan,
just give me that countryside.

New York
is where I'd rather stay
I get allergic smelling hay
I just adore a penthouse view
Darling, I love you,
but give me Park Avenue.

 

[Lazarus]

Why are small college towns desirable for a retiree? I don't see it for me. I am not going to go to college. I will have no kids in college. I don't do the things college age people do. Please enlighten me.

 

[audreyh1]

Why are small college towns desirable for a retiree? I don't see it for me. I am not going to  go to college. I will have no kids in college. I don't do the things college age people do. Please enlighten me.

Cheap beer?

 

[HFWR]

Probably somewhat more intellectual than your average small town, with more "culture"...

And cheap beer...

And college girls...

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Why are small college towns desirable for a retiree? I don't see it for me. I am not going to go to college. I will have no kids in college. I don't do the things college age people do. Please enlighten me.

Theory: they have most of the amenities of the big city while providing small town life at a modest cost of living.

Reality: all the above, plus thousands of students and all that creates (good and bad); traffic can be waay worse than non-university towns; cost of living rising very fast. In many such towns (I've lived in a few -- Charlottesville, Madison to name a couple), development is already starting to creep into "suburban" areas resembling those of large cities.

I have nothing for or against college towns but like everything else, you gotta take the bad with the good.

Ironically, perhaps, the way we have avoided sprawl is generally to live right in the heart of the city in mature neighborhoods. What you see is what you get for a long time - no room for development.

 

[haha]

Why are small college towns desirable for a retiree? I don't see it for me. I am not going to  go to college. I will have no kids in college. I don't do the things college age people do. Please enlighten me.

Urban and well educated people in a smaller more manageable environment. Often museums, classes and lectures that can be attended, music etc. If you have kids and you chosse a state school, you can offer relatively cheap college to your kids. Even grade schools and high schools benefit from the higher status residents brought by the university.

Of course if none of this appeals, then it just doesn't apply to you.

Ha

 

[Cut-Throat]

I like the city, would prefer to move to Mpls/St. Paul, near most of my good friends. I would like to be near a library, good parks, and have good walking and biking right out the door.

Greg likes a more rural setting or small town. Preferably off the grid.

You are one of the only folks I know where the Minneapolis area would be moving to a warmer climate!

 

[yelnad]

I think it really depends on which college town you're talking about. They're not all the same. I live outside of one with a population of 80k and that includes the students. It's an amazing place in the summer when the population drops to 39k, and that's when I like it best. :

We have amazing art, music, theatre, and sports brought to us courtesy of such a large university. We're also tops for hiking, camping, and fly fishing. This winter was pretty mild. Even when school is in session, the traffic is laughable. We mutter about it from time to time, but "rush hour" only lasts 10 minutes or so from 5-5:10pm. I just wait 10 minutes to leave work and I get home at the same time as if I left at 5.

But I still can't figure out the Olive Garden. No matter how many folks are in town, the wait os over an hour and the place can be half empty. Hmm...

 

[haha]

Ironically, perhaps, the way we have avoided sprawl is generally to live right in the heart of the city in mature neighborhoods. What you see is what you get for a long time - no room for development.

Good post. How do you avoid having lower class and sometimes poorly behaved people redistributed into the apartment buildings in your area via Section 8, etc?

I like cities a lot; but I see our cities on the way to increasing social polarization. In South America, for example, almost anyone who can afford it lives in a gated and guarded community. Not hard to imagine that here IMO. Though it may take a while for people to catch on to the new reality.

I stopped briefly this morning at Crossroads Mall in Bellevue. Couple cops had 2 'bangers on the floor being cuffed, and backup cop cars were streaming in from all directions. Bellevue was not this way a little while ago, but it is becoming so, at least East Bellevue. But small 60s houses still cost $400, 000+. Do the buyers realize that this is a dynamic situation?

In a tony downtown Seattle neighborhood called Belltown, the people living in $1Mil+ apartments must not realize that the nightlife on the streets might not be attractive to risk averse millionaires.  They had better leave their secure parking and apartments by car, and head out to the 'burbs for entertainment.

Or maybe they are like someone on another thread, who prefers to do his drinking alone.


Ha

 

[donheff]

No accounting for taste, but we finally acknowledged that we were city people

Same here. Luckily both my wife and I feel the same. We live on Capitol Hill in DC and love the ability to walk to restaurants, walk downtown to a movie, etc. We have a weekend place on the Potomac where most of our neighbors are retirees but we both figure that is the disposable place if we need extra money. It is a great place to relax -- for a while - but we would go stir crazy if we had to saty. We have talked about college towns for all of the reasons people mentioned above, but where we are now meets all the same criteria and the mortgage is paid. I can't recommend it to anyone else since the real estate prices skyrocketed in the last 5 years.

Don

 

[Maximillion]

http://www.normankoren.com/Boulder.html

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Good post. How do you avoid having lower class and sometimes poorly behaved people redistributed into the apartment buildings in your area via Section 8, etc?

We buy expensive houses (at least by smaller town or exurban standards - maybe similar to upscale suburban prices). We look for mostly well-kept landscaping (first thing to go). My wife has great intuition (she's a realtor). We don't try to get too much into "up and coming" or "gentrifying" neighborhoods. We like 'em already there and stable for years. Love sidewalks, big oak trees (yes we have 'em in Tampa), walking, chatting with neighbors.

Ain't the cheapest way to go, really, but I am not so sure it is that much more expensive. The housing prices hold very well, travel and commute time are minimal, and we can easily be entertained without resorting to planned outings - just head to a funky downtown restaurant or bar for an hour or two whenever the urge hits. Everything is within 10 minutes.

Works for us.

 

[wildcat]

Why are small college towns desirable for a retiree? I don't see it for me. I am not going to go to college. I will have no kids in college. I don't do the things college age people do. Please enlighten me.

Well, I will add my thoughts in addition to the other posts. First, this thread is all about different strokes for different folks. For me, I would prefer to be in a vibrant environment minus all the chaos that comes with many big cities. Obviously, the performing arts comes at a fraction of the cost. Sure, it won't be as good as the big city venue but it is certainly cheaper. Actually contrary to some posts, I could find a lot of locally owned businesses and ethnic restaurants in all of the college towns I have visited, some of which had a lot of history in the community. My experiences and friendships just seemed so much more real and personal than what I would have found in an urban area. Maybe fewer distractions can be a good thing from time to time.

 

[wildcat]

a restaurant in every fifth storefront or a starbucks on every third block.

We didn't have no stinkin Starbucks. We still had a very good, locally owned coffee shop where you could enjoy a good cup of joe. You didn't have to worry about reading through some menu with "frippy frappy vanilla mocha expresso with whip cream" $6.00 junk on it and you could enjoy with a person from every walk of life. IMHO it's not a good coffee shop if it only seems to serve middle-upper class people. Gotta have local weirdos

 

[Michael Moore]

When my sweetheart's grandparents retired they sold their place on Lake Merced here in SF and moved up to Paradise CA (outside of Chico).  They did pretty well up there for about 15 years or so, but when they stopped being able to drive they discovered that public transportation in Paradise sucked.  This saw my sweetheart's mother driving the 180 or so miles each way to take her parents to doctor appointments in Chico.  Eventually, they ended up selling their house in Paradise (which took well over a year) and moving into a small apartment back in SF (all they could afford on his city pension - Paradise property values didn't rise the way stuff here in the city did), and then into retirement centers, and so on as the downward spiral took them.

It may be nice to move to that "dream" location, but some thought should be given to your escape options should things take a turn for the worse.

I've had to make a 911 call, and knowing that there is a fire station two blocks away, and major hospitals within 10 minutes (or less) at ambulance speeds is pretty nice.  If you are having a heart attack, trying to explain to the 911 operator how to identify a sycamore tree so they will know which unmarked/unlighted road to take when they finally get 15 miles out of town may be a bit more than I would care to deal with (and I've lived in a small town (Ruston LA) where I was supposed to find a beneficiary for an interview (I worked for SSA) by turning at a sycamore tree way out in the country, and I never did get there . . .)

Would I like to live in some large stately home on a lovely tree-lined  street in a quiet neighborhood that didn't have trash blowing in from the 7-11 at the corner?  I think so, especially if someone else is going to do all the yard work and leaf raking.  

But the streetcar stops down at that corner across from the 7-11, and we can be downtown on it in about 20 minutes.  We've got plenty of nice eateries within a 5 minute drive and there really isn't much need to get out of our neighborhood and deal with the madness of big city life.  We're also 2.5 blocks away from both the beach and Golden Gate Park.

On the other hand, the son of the lady who lives in the lot behind our next door neighbor did eventually get sent up for murdering a kid in a drug deal down at the corner, and my sweetheart would get pretty creeped out seeing him sitting on his back porch watching her working in the garden (the case took a long time to resolve and he was out "loose", and the breakthrough was having his brother turn state's evidence on him).

But even small towns seem to have murderers these days.

Living in a small town on the outskirts of a city might be a good option.  Of course, it seems like  by the time you hear about one of those great small places to move to, so have 300K other people.  If I'm going to have to deal with big-city traffic and crowding, I'd like to have something other than a Walmart at the end of the drive.

cheers,
Michael

 

[ESRBob]

Yelnad;
care to give us a hint about where this paradise is?

My favorite thing about college towns is they tend to have good ethnic restaurants at reasonable prices. Also they tend to be a bit more liberal/tolerant, more interesting arts/architecture and more diverse population. I'd put up with the undergraduate pranks and the traffic/parking snarls.

But if you have to get your Italian food in an Olive Garden, that sounds a little iffy...

 

[Jarhead*]

Yelnad;
care to give us a hint about where this paradise is? 

ESRBob: Paradise is about 90 miles north of Sacramento, in the foothills, and about 20 miles from Chico. Mostly retired folks, with a population of about 40,000.

Incidentally, Chico (Home of Chico State University) is a very good example of a small college town, (Pop. about 100,000) that offers a very high quality of life.

About 5 years ago, Kiplinger Magazine conducted one of those "Best Places to Retire" surveys, and Chico was on front cover, and their number one pick nationwide.

By the way, Bob, I ordered and read your book about 4 months ago. Excellent job. You covered a lot of bases, and highly recommend it to anybody that may be considering a different way of life.

Regards, Jarhead

 

[mb]

Yakers,

You didn't mention if you wanted to stay in CA? If so I would look at Chico (mentioned by Jarhead and the Other Michael) and Davis. Both university towns. You just have to be able to put up with the central valley temperatures in the summer. (That is why I would think twice before moving there.) Davis isn't that far from the Sacramento river delta.

MB

 

[youbet]

This urban - suburban - rural retirement thing has got us thinking too......

DW and I, on the brink of RE, would like to have it all, all at once.  We see pros and cons to any location and no compromise where we don't think the cons will get on our nerves over time. Alas, finances probably can't support an urban highrise condo and a remote, lakeside home and a big transportation budget to go back and forth.   

It took a long time, but we did decide that trying to find a compromise location wasn't the answer.  It's going to be urban or rural, or both, or so it seems at the moment.

We had these thoughts......

1.  Live in the city and get an RV to do extensive travel.

2.  Start in the city but move to a rural location for some period of time or reverse the order.

3.  Get over the dissatisfaction with compromise locations such as college towns, far out suburbs where owning small acreage is possible or something like that.

3.  Stop being so conservative about the percentage of assests tied up in real estate and go ahead and have two places.  Currently, our paid-for home is 10% of our total net worth.  Perhaps, Upping that percentage to 20% and owning two places is the answer afterall?   :

4.  Go ahead and RE but don't even think about buying, selling, moving, etc. for a year until we understand what RE is really going to be like.

What to do? What to do?