Customer Reviews

Retirement Places Rated

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The beauty of the book is that Savageau's rankings are both (a) quantative, reducing the chance for the author's personal preferences to affect the ratings, and (b) pretty well explained: you know how he came up with the ratings. It's unlikely that your own list does not include several in Savageau's group. Since he explains the basis for each location's standing in each category (there are seven), the reader can make his/her own judgements if a particular factor is of less interest to that reader than it is to the author. In fact, a sort of interest quiz in the first chapter helps the reader understand which factors are more important to him/her. This armed, the reader could use the approach to his/her own list of places.

Other books of this genre tend to lean heavily on opinion and seem to get a lot of input from the chamber of commerce. That's not a problem here.

While I have some reservations about the relative "weights" provided to some of the information groups, this is a good reference with which to compare information among cities and regions. Contrasting the climate or economic strengths of different locations is relatively easy using this book.

Each section of this reference guide has a scoring system which eventually corresponds to a scale of 100. In this way, the author attempts to compare and contrast disparate issues, such as cost of living, services and crime. But while the detail is "good", the accumulation of scores to arrive at a final ranking of all locations lacks some merit. High cost of living cities still have very high overall ranks because of arbitrary "high" scores for subjective items such as ambience. Also crime rates tend to be of limited value because some locations under report actual crime statistics.

Overall, I would recommend this guide as a starting point for those considering relocation when retiring. While it may not answer all questions, which the author admits, it does give the reader a place to start when compiling their own list for what they are looking for in a retirement setting.

This book is very good if you are looking to retire or locate somewhere else, plus it gives you a lot of good information on your locate area and state. Very well written, however I think in some cases the tax information is incorrect. In Maryland the piggy back tax is not calculated and this makes the state income taxes look lower. Weather information, crime, health and cost of living were very interesting, and comparing areas of states or state to state was easy.

In the growing field of books offering suggested places to live or retire, RETIREMENT PLACES RATED is one of the few to base its findings entirely on statistics rather than opinion. David Savageau, the author, has authored prior editions of this book as well as the popular PLACES RATED ALMANAC. Feeding into the statistics here come metrics on each of 203 locations from six specific areas: Ambiance (by which the author means largely historic charm and outdoor recreation), Costs of Living, Climate, Personal Safety, Services (availability of medical services, for example) and The Economy. We're also given a useful Appendix with Chamber of Commerce addresses, income-tax information, and the like.

My hunch is that people will find this book quite useful, but not conclusive. It's impossible to avoid opinion entirely, even in a statistics-gathering format like this one, because someone still has to decide what to count and how to weight it. Take the section on Climate: the very top performers are California coastal Mediterranean places like San Diego, which is not surprising. Then come snowless Pacific Northwest cliimates, desert climates, beach climates (mainly in Florida), and long-hot-summer climates (think central Texas). Although nearly half of the 203 locales rated here are not in the Sunbelt or on salt water, we have to move almost halfway down the list to get to them.

The heat doesn't seem to matter much in this author's assessment of what constitutes "climatic mildness." That's why Yuma, Arizona, where it goes to triple-digit temperatures all summer, comes in at number 10, while relatively mild four-season Charlottesville, Virginia ranks 137. (Actually, if a place has any snowfall that sticks, it's doomed to a poor rating.) Interestingly, Charlottesville placed no. 1 among places to retire in a guide for general use that also came out in 2004 (Cities Ranked & Rated), which used only slightly different metrics. As for an overall score, in RETIREMENT PLACES RATED Charlottesville comes in number 35, edging out Yuma at number 37.

A happy feature of the prior general-interest PLACES RATED ALMANAC was Savageau's use of screening or "filtering" devices to custom-tailor the rankings to people with differing tastes. There was, in fact, precisely a ranking of climatic mildness for people who nonetheless want to live in a four-season climate, not a winterless one, screening out San Diego and Sarasota and Yuma but including, say, Charlottesville. There should have been much more of that sort of thing here.

But a person doesn't have to agree with all the rankings to benefit from the stats. Data on housing costs, crime, and the local economy are all welcome. Just don't think of RETIREMENT PLACES RATED as the only book of its kind you'll ever need.

IF you are willing to devote the time and care to studying this book, THEN you will be rewarded with not only a clear way of thinking about retirement living, but a solid methodology to use in finding 'your best place'. Good reading and good luck!

This book is filled with facts and figures about numerous retirement possibilities. I like the quantitative nature of the book, but wish there was more on the people and lifestyles of the different cities.

This book has just about all the information you will need to start your research on where and how to retire. It contains detailed information that you will need to plan your retirement budget. If this was a novel a copywrite date of 1999 would not matter but, this book contains cost-of-living, tax and housing costs information. One would have to take this into consideration when reading this book. It is well worth buying. There is no book that I know of that has this much detailed info in it.

The book ranks retirement places from the first to last according
to numerous categories including overall quality of life,
safety, services and climate. For instance, dry climates may
be found in Nevada, Utah and Arizona. Cloudy states are Oregon,
Virginia, Montana and Vermont. Snowy winters are in Idaho,
Colorado, Vermont and Maine. The most safe areas are portions of
Georgia, Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina and some
areas of NYS. Services for seniors are best in Florida, North
Carolina, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Vermont. Leisure sports
are most prominent in NYS., MASS, Florida, California and
New Mexico. Overall quality of life issues are strongest
in Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, Florida and Arizona.
This book has a goldmine of ideas for the quality of living
enthusiasts, as well as persons who are cost conscious.
The book is reasonably priced for the value of information
provided. Of course, you should always visit any locality
on the potential list of retirement places. A retirement is
a major investment of money and resources for any person
or couple. Investigate before you make a final decision to
invest.

Though this book is currently from 1999, it still contains useful information. Having a sense of what you need, and the kind of life you'd like to life will help you to understand why's the book is organized as it is.

Apart from its main function as indicated in the title, the book provides a very good source of information about our Land.
It is worth having around as a ready reference for much useful informaion and data which would be very time consuming on the PC.