Deciding on retirement state. Any wisdom to share?

[Paradox58]

P.S. I just returned from 8 days in St. Paul. Really heartbreaking to see the results of the violence and hear story-after-story of small business owners that won't be able to recover. This, on top of the pandemic shutdowns...

[davephan]

Originally Posted by Paradox58

P.S. I just returned from 8 days in St. Paul. Really heartbreaking to see the results of the violence and hear story-after-story of small business owners that won't be able to recover. This, on top of the pandemic shutdowns...

You saw what parts of St Paul can look like when the rioters, arsonists, and looters attack the businesses. Those criminals are 100% Democrat, none are Republicans or conservatives. The destruction was far worse in south Minneapolis. You saw up close and personal, the new face of the Democrat party.

If you own a nice home in St Paul, your property taxes could be 3 times as high as the same value home out in the suburbs. There are many people in the core cities, like St Paul and Minneapolis, who don't contribute to the tax revenue, and you'll be the people that have the nicer homes, and pay taxes, have to make up the difference, paying huge property taxes.

The snow plowing in the core cities St Paul and Minneapolis is horrible compared to the suburban areas. The plowing is slow, and they always do a lousy plowing job. The lousy snow plowing happens every time it snows, and has been lousy and slow for many decades. Those types of problems are never fixed. Much of your tax money is wasted on unnecessary things, and a lot of the tax revenue ends up being given to the able bodied freeloaders, who are scamming the system. Some simply too lazy to work, and scamming the system. Some working for cash and scamming the system for extra income. There's no shortage of freeloaders who want to be given welfare and get the "free stuff". The welfare system should be used by only the disabled or truly needy people, not the freeloaders.

[columbusboy8]

Originally Posted by davephan

You saw what parts of St Paul can look like when the rioters, arsonists, and looters attack the businesses. Those criminals are 100% Democrat, none are Republicans or conservatives. The destruction was far worse in south Minneapolis. You saw up close and personal, the new face of the Democrat party.

If you own a nice home in St Paul, your property taxes could be 3 times as high as the same value home out in the suburbs. There are many people in the core cities, like St Paul and Minneapolis, who don't contribute to the tax revenue, and you'll be the people that have the nicer homes, and pay taxes, have to make up the difference, paying huge property taxes.

The snow plowing in the core cities St Paul and Minneapolis is horrible compared to the suburban areas. The plowing is slow, and they always do a lousy plowing job. The lousy snow plowing happens every time it snows, and has been lousy and slow for many decades. Those types of problems are never fixed. Much of your tax money is wasted on unnecessary things, and a lot of the tax revenue ends up being given to the able bodied freeloaders, who are scamming the system. Some simply too lazy to work, and scamming the system. Some working for cash and scamming the system for extra income. There's no shortage of freeloaders who want to be given welfare and get the "free stuff". The welfare system should be used by only the disabled or truly needy people, not the freeloaders.

Doing away with the brutal police departments, and continuing to vote Democrat will make St. Paul a safer and more peaceful city, right Seattle? Philadelphia? Portland? Chicago? Atlanta? St Louis?? Charlotte?, Birmingham? Baltimore?, San Francisco?, Oakland?, Detroit? Yeah, I realize that not all these cities have defunded (abolished) their police departments----YET!! Since these are all Democrat-run cities, they have a wealth of knowledge on how to do things right, so it's worth a shot!

[Wayfarerz]

I've been doing the same retirement planning analysis over the past few years, so I'll pass along my opinion so far.

First, you've got to decide your personal preferences. Do you like or hate cold weather? Are you willing to tolerate high humidity as the price of having everything green? Are you a city person, a small town person, or a rural person?

I would think twice about moving to any large American city. The unrest we've seen may get worse when the Free Stuff Army learns they AREN'T going to get the freebies they've been promised. Also, do you REALLY need 30 good restaurants to choose from? Today, with the internet, streaming video, and online shopping, you can have access to many things no matter where you live.

I've explored many small towns and found there are two problems. Many rural communities are on life support economically. Sure, the cost of living is low, but do you really want to live somewhere where all the young people leave? The second problem with small towns is access to good healthcare. This can be somewhat worked around by finding a small town or smallish city that has a regional medical center.

In the East, the southern Appalachians (like western NC) have a nice climate without extremes. Someone already mentioned Hendersonville. You may also want to look at eastern TN and Kentucky.

Some nice areas in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado have already been "discovered" and are seeing high growth, more congestion, and increasing house prices. As productive people continue to flee states like California, this trend will continue.

The area I'm currently looking at is western South Dakota - relatively mild climate (compared to MN and North Dakota) and has not yet been discovered by that many people. Maine and New Hampshire are nice too if you don't mind cold weather and don't have to worry about finding a job.