PA has 7 of the top 10 places to retire. (Scranton, Wilkes-Barre: high crime, college)

[jazzy jeff]

Originally Posted by jtab4994

LOL another listicle on best cities to retire in. NYC is#6 on this list. Another recent list had San Francisco at #1.

I'm not sure who these lists are aimed at, but I think they always try to sprinkle in some outrageous picks just to generate clicks & buzz.

Somewhat surprising, but excellent Health-Care I suppose put NYC there.

[PAhippo]

Originally Posted by jtab4994

LOL another listicle on best cities to retire in. NYC is#6 on this list. Another recent list had San Francisco at #1.

I'm not sure who these lists are aimed at, but I think they always try to sprinkle in some outrageous picks just to generate clicks & buzz.

might better figure out who pays for them.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by PAhippo

might better figure out who pays for them.

There may be truth to that. What I learned in over three decades of being either involved in local government or an elected official in it (24 years) is that any consultant will bring back the results that whoever pays for them wants.

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by jazzy jeff

Weather would be a con, but the real pro of Pa is the fact there is no state tax on any retirement income. That includes social security or anything reported on a 1099R.

Neither does Illinois, Iowa and Mississippi. For retirement with excellent amenities like healthcare the Chicagoland area or Champaign-Urbana is at the same level or better than this list. I'd also add Iowa City for that matter.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by kyle19125

Neither does Illinois, Iowa and Mississippi. For retirement with excellent amenities like healthcare the Chicagoland area or Champaign-Urbana is at the same level or better than this list. I'd also add Iowa City for that matter.

I will note, however, that just about all seven of the Pennsylvania cities listed have hospitals and physician practices affiliated with one or more of the three top-flight health care systems that operate in the state.

Two are academic. UPMC (the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) has hospitals in western and central Pennsylvania, extending as far east as Lancaster County. It also operates a health insurance plan that provides coverage just about everywhere but the southeast as well as a statewide Medicaid HMO.

Penn Medicine (the University of Pennsylvania Health System) operates hospitals in the Greater Philadelphia region (Southeast Pennsylvania; Philadelphia is not in the top 10 but is in the top 15) and in #3 Lancaster. Penn is home to the nation's oldest medical school and its flagship hospital in Philadelphia is on US News' Top 20 Honor Roll.

The third, Geisinger, is an independent nonprofit health care system that has a stellar reputation for both care and treating its employees well. It operates hospitals in central and northeast Pennsylvania. It also operates a health insurance plan.

[phfat]

I like to think of PA as a beautiful, rural, natural region with a few urban sores festering here and there.

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by phfat

I like to think of PA as a beautiful, rural, natural region with a few urban sores festering here and there.

You join CD just to say this?...

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

I will note, however, that just about all seven of the Pennsylvania cities listed have hospitals and physician practices affiliated with one or more of the three top-flight health care systems that operate in the state.

Two are academic. UPMC (the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) has hospitals in western and central Pennsylvania, extending as far east as Lancaster County. It also operates a health insurance plan that provides coverage just about everywhere but the southeast as well as a statewide Medicaid HMO.

Penn Medicine (the University of Pennsylvania Health System) operates hospitals in the Greater Philadelphia region (Southeast Pennsylvania; Philadelphia is not in the top 10 but is in the top 15) and in #3 Lancaster. Penn is home to the nation's oldest medical school and its flagship hospital in Philadelphia is on US News' Top 20 Honor Roll.

The third, Geisinger, is an independent nonprofit health care system that has a stellar reputation for both care and treating its employees well. It operates hospitals in central and northeast Pennsylvania. It also operates a health insurance plan.

I'm glad someone has said this. Pennsylvania is a rural state, just like most of them are, and every little wide spot in the road isn't going to have a "world class medical center with the best specialists in the world".

What rural hospitals do have is doctors who know when to send a patient to one of those "world class medical centers with the best specialists in the world" that the local hospital has a working and established relationship with.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

I'm glad someone has said this. Pennsylvania is a rural state, just like most of them are, and every little wide spot in the road isn't going to have a "world class medical center with the best specialists in the world".

What rural hospitals do have is doctors who know when to send a patient to one of those "world class medical centers with the best specialists in the world" that the local hospital has a working and established relationship with.

And that brings us to the root of many of our divides, but especially the political ones.

The territory of most US states consists predominatly or overwhelmingly of rural land. Even the majority of the land in the nation's two most densely populated states, New Jersey (60%) and Rhode Island (61.3%), is rural.

But the overwhelming bulk of the people live in urban areas (suburbs count as urban in this Manichean division of land). The 78% of Pennsylvanians who live in urban areas occupy a mere 9.2% of the state's land.

This means that if the urbanites (including the suburbanites) all vote alike, they will constantly outvote the rural folk. Fortunately for the people down on the farm, they don't. The political alignment of the state's two biggest metropolitan areas has shifted: the affluent Philly suburbanites, like most affluent coastal suburbanites now, vote like Philadelphia city residents do, while the depressed steel towns that comprise the "Land of the Forgotten" in the counties around Allegheny (Pittsburgh and its near suburbs) vote like the rural residents of the T. (It used to be that all of Greater Pittsburgh was deep blue, while Philly's suburbs canceled out the huge Democratic majority in the core city.) This keeps Pennsylvania elections competitive, however, and that's why we have become the center of the nation's attention when the Presidential election rolls around. We're one of only a handful of states where neither the "urban" nor the "rural" voting blocs dominate. (Oklahoma is the only US state where even the urbanites vote "rural," though maybe Wyoming falls into this camp as well.)

The split between population and people replicates itself at the national level, but politically, the suburbs are split, depending on the region one is in. And because the split is close in a lot of metropolitan areas, we get a nearly evenly divided electorate, with the largely suburban voters who are wedded to neither party the deciding factor.

[Pullenaway]

Originally Posted by Jessie Mitchell

I can see the reasoning. But then we considered a number of the same criteria when deciding where to move after retirement and we ended up here in PA.

Same with us...we wanted to live in the Northeast, and PA fit the bill.