We lived in Scottsdale for 16 years and have now retired to the SE valley. I’m unfamiliar with the winds @LeastComplicated mentioned. My experience is similar to @anomander’s, but no allergies, so can’t comment on that. The main negative for me is no large bodies of water. We will be traveling back east for a few months each summer so I can get my fix of both water and greenery. Otherwise, for us, AZ met our cost of living/quality of life sweet spot better than anywhere else.
We had good friends who lived in Gilbert. Loved to visit them in the winter! Kiddo spent a few summer weeks at a sports camp near Phoenix and did just fine - we went to pick her up and survived, too. Do you know that competition swim pools in AZ have cooling systems?! Loved, loved, loved visiting AZ in December. Have a foot tall saguaro cactus that baby kiddo smuggled out of there as a tiny baby cactus blob. Need to repot that thing!! 
@Sybylla Thank you for citydata suggestion. Wealth of information I am combing through.
If you want a Pro for AZ or UT as a place to retire, I suppose you could point out that neither of them are Clark County, NV, where unsuspecting wealthy retirees regularly get robbed by court-appointed guardians they’ve never met.
Who knows? The same may be happening there, too and we just don’t know about it. A close-knit small town worries me in that sense.
Phoenix is a fantastic city, and I am not at all a city person. It’s one of maybe two or three cities in the entire country that I would ever consider living in. You really have to visit/stay regularly though to appreciate the true beauty of it. There is so much to do and see… tons of great restaurants, shopping, and hiking trails. Hardly any smog, and crystal clear skies most of the year. It’s also predominantly a single-family home/“sprawl” type of city which means the sky is much more open, giving you great views of the surrounding natural scenery. Some people complain about Phoenix’s sprawl and inefficient use of land but I actually prefer it that way. And yes it’s hot in Phoenix for ~4 months of the year, but the rest of the year is excellent.
Prescott is also a great place to retire to. Excellent shopping and restaurant options for a metro area of only 80k people. It’s up at 5,000 ft, so you will get four seasons with ~85-90 degree summers. If you are into outdoor activities, including off-roading/Jeeping, this is the place to be.
Tucson, also excellent… If I were to retire there I would pick somewhere just out of the main city, either south or in Oro Valley.
If you are feeling adventurous and want to get away from big cities all together, there’s Kingman, in particular the southeast part of the city near Hualapai mtn, or estate land out in Golden Valley. Beautiful area, IMO, but a bit isolated from big city amenities.
Lastly, I can’t speak for Utah, but New Mexico also has some excellent spots to retire to, in particular Albuquerque itself, and Las Cruces.
If you want a more blue area in Phoenix come on over to Tempe. I think our numbers of red/blue are about reversed as to the rest of Phoenix/Scottsdale. Great local bookstore (changing hands), lots of cool restaurants. 15 min from the airport. Great freeways to everything. Lots of nearby hiking. Big bike culture. ASU (the closer you are obviously the greater the student population).
“I guess the main question for me, would be what options are available to meet new people, establish new support (friends, churches, hospitals, doctors, mechanics, etc)”
My father-in-law moved to a Sun City development and found a new network almost instantly. Not just acquaintances, but devoted friends. When he had a health scare, I was impressed by how many friends insisted on coming by every day, driving him to the doctor, etc.
I will move to a retiremnet community. For now, I think I still have juice to last 5-10years. If I can, I’d like to live withing a walking distance from a national park.
^ Not sure if it was mentioned yet, but St. George is another great option in SW Utah. Very popular retirement area, and close to Red Cliffs and Zion. Also, kinda-sorta-not really close to Lake Powell which is stunningly beautiful.
Tempemom, aww…old acquaintances started Changing Hands, and was part of the scene when I lived in Tempe eons ago. I am one of the Arizona snobs who does not like the sprawl of the Phoenix area, and the endless strip malls…except that it is home. When I needed to move back there for job purposes from Prescott a few decades back, I realized living in the Phoenix area makes me quite happy. Walking the canal banks, the numerous places to hike, the arts, the interesting restaurant scene, the orange blossoms in the spring, and the ease of escaping the heat with a few hours drive make the place a pleasure if you can avoid a long commute. For those of a certain political orientation, you are needed to change the demographics.
I just returned from Phx last night, and am not sure where I will end up, as I do love the state.
Regarding the wind, when I lived in the Prescott area, I felt it was incessant and intolerable in the spring. On Monday afternoon, it was close to intolerable on the south end of the Navajo Reservation and the Grand Canyon. But that may be unseasonable, and is part of what fueled the California fires. In the Phoenix area, I have no memory of wind being much of an issue.
Regarding the wood ‘haboob’ us old timers resent the imposition of that word on the dust storms we grew up with. Dust storms they will remain, in some circles.
I know we’ll never move to AZ but I went to summer camp in Prescott for several years and was a counselor for a couple more during college. I love seeing the references to Prescott and, while I’m sure it’s different now it’s bringing back incredible memories and I recall a darling town and good weather.
The potential culture shock of moving to small town Utah cannot be overstated.
re small towns. Need to fit a smaller demographic- politics, religion, ethnicity. Smart readers come in many forms. easier to break into a group that doesn’t know each other forever as well. The intellectuals in a small town may not be your tribe. Think Venn diagrams with overlapping interests- will you find enough people that are like you in enough ways? Is the small town static- with residents who have been there a long time as have their relatives? Or is it like places many retire to with people from other areas? FL and AZ can be many old newcomers.
re retirement communities. “Over 55” could be many over 80. Retired has many ages and stages in life- it includes your parents! They also may have restrictions that include no visiting children. Look carefully at how things are run and all sorts of factors. The Villages in Florida work for Republicans, but not liberals… There may be get togethers with food- but it needs to be the kind of foods you like. Consider the financial stability of the community. Is it becoming rundown as residents age and do not keep things up or care to pay for amenities anymore? Are property values stable? All sorts of considerations.
If it is a tourist town, would the residents be so entrnched in their ways? I am considering a tourist town and hoping there’s enough people coming and leaving.
Very likely, and the more the religious homogeneity and the smaller the town, the more likely.
Perfect examples would be Torrey and Bicknell, just outside Capitol Reef National Park. Beautiful spots, I’ve had friends relocate there only to leave within a year or two.
Though larger, the dominance of the predominant religion in St. George is too much for me. I prefer Cedar City which, as a college town, is more diverse, and also has a nicer climate due to its higher elevation.
Moab’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Much more diverse than the other places I’ve mentioned, but IMO, a little too full of itself in the “hip and cool” department.
Have you consider the area around Reno, Nevada? Close proximity to Lake Tahoe and San Francisco, and no income tax.
I am a bit fuul of myself, too. Reno or Lake Tahoe doesn’t interest me for some reason. I did look into Capital Reef National Park area.
This can be true and @wis75 makes some good points, but AZ has many non-aged-restricted retirement communities; we live in one of them, and the vibe is quite young. My dad, OTOH, lives in Sun City Grand in the west valley which is a beautiful, extremely well-maintained and vibrant community, but tends toward the 80s crowd and has lots of rules regarding pool/club usage hours for visiting children and minimum ages for home ownership/occupany that just wouldn’t work for us as we still had a high-schooler when we moved into one of these communities.
I think AZ is moot for the OP though as he stated he wants to be near Moab or a national park, so it looks like we need to focus the conversation on Utah.
The area around Capitol Reef is stunning. In particular I like the unlikely combination of red rock formations and nearby alpine lakes. I’ll never forget a brief interaction I had with the gentleman selling me fishing worms in a small town just outside Capitol Reef:
Me: I’d like to buy 2 dozen worms.
Man: You bet. Are you a Mormon?
Me: No.
Man: Better get to be.
Me: Have a nice day.
@ChoatieMom, my mom lives in the Grand as well. My parents were the reason they now have the fire department in there. They stood in the middle of the street watching their house burn to the ground and they could hear the fire trucks, but the fire dept couldn’t find their house because the place is so dang big. I was astonished that many of the residents opposed the fire station going in there after that. Huh???