Atlanta Ranked Top 5 Places to Retire
AARP The Magazine has ranked Atlanta among the top five places in which to retire. Completing the top five are Beacon Hill in Boston; Chandler, Ariz.; Milwaukee, Wis.; and Portland, Ore. AARP The Magazine said its selections focus on livable community characteristics in each location including mass-transit systems so residents can drive less, expanded sidewalks to encourage walking, better health care, and a wide range of mixed use housing.
These qualities attract members of the 50-plus age group, a segment that spends more than $2.2 trillion on goods and services each year and is expected to grow in size by 32 percent in the next 15 years.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Lifestyle vibe: Sophisticated metropolis with Southern charm
Fitness fix: Full-service health clubs in downtown condos
Retirees love: Abundant volunteer and cultural opportunities
Retirees hate: Sticky southern summers
Median housing price: $171,800
Average temperature: 43°F (January) and 80°F (July)Donna Miller, 61, just loves urban life. “Cities are good for me,” says the retired librarian, who moved here from Old Greenwich, Connecticut, three years ago. “And Atlanta seemed perfect. It’s green, it’s pretty, and because it’s smaller than some cities, I thought I’d find it easier to insert myself into the community.” Best of all, Donna, a widow, has family here; a daughter and three grandchildren live in nearby Smyrna. So far, Atlanta has met all of Donna’s criteria for being a great place to live (and retire): she has made new friends, lives within easy walking distance of the High Museum of Art, where she is a docent, and is close to Emory University, where she also volunteers.
Such relocation success stories are the norm in Atlanta. In recent years it has been the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country, adding more than 890,000 new residents between 2000 and 2006. Its rapid growth—kicked off by the 1996 Olympics—has transformed the city. “I like to tell people that I grew up in a small railroad town but that since the Olympics, I’ve been living in an international city,” says Wicke Chambers, an Atlantan and author of Celebrate Retirement (Winslow Press, 2005).
Atlanta is also an increasingly older city. The Atlanta Regional Commission says that from 2000 to 2005 the older-adult population grew by 30.6 percent, more than double the growth rate of the total population (13.7 percent), and that by 2030 one in five residents will be 60 or older.
Atlanta has worked hard to manage this growth. Since 64 percent of those 55-plus say they’d like to stay in their homes as long as possible, the city has invested considerable resources in its Easy Living Home program
In addition, Atlanta’s Livable Centers Initiative has invested more than $500 million to date to encourage the development of diverse housing types and pedestrian-friendly walkways. And the massive Atlantic Station project transformed 130 acres on the edge of downtown into a vibrant center with retail shops, restaurants, and housing for 10,000.
All of which makes the city increasingly attractive, not only to newcomers but to longtime residents as well. Greg Riggs, 59, former general counsel for Delta Airlines, and his wife, Kaye, 52, wondered if they should relocate after he retired—after all, their two girls were already in college. “We took about a year to think about it,” Greg recalls, “and we decided our lives were so rich here, it just didn’t make sense to go anywhere else.”
To see the entire article, go to http://www.aarpmagazine.org/lifestyle/best_places_2007.html