Golf courses, hiking, and temperate weather (mostly). Affordable suburbs, a great airport, and a world-famous hospital. The Phoenix metro area must be one of the best places to retire in the U.S.A., right?
Read more Look both ways before you cross the street this Halloween, Phoenix!
Wrong.
U.S. News & World Report released its 2027 list of the Best Places to Retire on Tuesday and boy, oh boy did the Valley have a poor showing. You’d think that with all our Snow Birds flocking here each year, and our cute little towns and cities, our state would be a retirees’ dream. But it turns out, not so much. And not only did we do poorly, but we did worse than last year.
The ranking and consumer advice company analyzed data for 859 cities from its own internal resources and the Applied Geographic Solutions (AGS), which uses private and government data from places such as the U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce, Federal Reserve and Bureau of Economic Analysis, as well as state and local sources. It grouped the data into six categories — quality of life, value, health care quality, retiree taxes, senior population/migration and job market — and weighted them based on a survey of 3,500 people about the most important factors when deciding where to retire.
Only three Valley cities made the cut for the top 250 cities to retire in — Surprise, Gilbert and Queen Creek. But while they made the cut — good on them! — all three dropped in ranking from last year’s list.
Read more Phoenix launches a $2 on-demand van service pilot program
Surprise took 156th out of 250 cities, down from 83rd. Gilbert ranked 200, a steep drop from last year’s ranking of 127. Meanwhile, Queen Creek trailed the pack at 205, a far cry from 154th. But at least they made it. Chandler and Peoria were both on the list last year. This year? Um, not so much.
Last year Surprise was the 24th best mid-sized city to retire in. This year, despite making the overall list, it’s not. In fact, none of our small or mid-sized cities ranked this year. You might be wondering about Sun City. It was quite literally built specifically for retirees so it must be there, right? Nope. It’s nowhere to be seen. The sun, alas, seems to have set on Sun City.
Read more Leyba Ruiz outraises Yee in state superintendent race