<p>We want to live out our lives where: 1) We can walk to everything we NEED (groceries, medical, library, etc), and 2) There’s public transportation to the other stuff (intellectual / cultural / sports venues, international airports, etc.</p>
<p>We live in a car-less city now, and it’s fantastic. We can totally imagine never owning a car again. Bonus: We get lots of exercise walking to / from the subway / train stations now!</p>
<p>We have only one DD (now in college), and there’s no predicting where she’ll end up living, so we have few geographical constrictions: NO horrid summer / winter weather, or natural / manmade catastrophes.</p>
<p>I’ve found walkscore-dot-com to be helpful. Supplementing that with a maps.google search to include our “specific requirements” helps a lot. The final piece of the puzzle is “the atmosphere” (ie, local culture), but that can’t be ascertained without a visit - - “One man’s meat is another man’s poison”, and all that.</p>
<p>^ I have lived in NYC and agree you can certainly live car-free there. But recently H and I visited our car-free D in Boston and **fell in love **with that city. D lives in the lovely Back Bay neighborhood and walks to work as well as to many leisure activities.</p>
<p>While both NYC and Boston are expensive, I believe Boston is a bit less so. Plus if you factor in the savings from not needing a car (using a rental when needed) the end result of living in such a city may not be out of range.</p>
<p>H and I are a few years from retirement and figure we would like to see where the kids are settled (at least for a while) before making our location plans. S is still in college.</p>
<p>In any event, I would give “walk to all” a high priority.</p>
<p>Interesting to read this whole thread. If someone finds that “perfect” city (or two) I say we all pack up and move there - we can rename the town CCVille. :)</p>
<p>I appreciate this thread too. We’re looking for our “pre-retirement” home right now – we want to leave where we currently live, but not ready to retire. Eventually we plan to live close to our only child (at least in the same time zone!), but it could be years before she settles.</p>
<p>Our criteria: On the East coast, along the Amtrak line. Don’t mind winters, but prefer them to be on the shorter side. No more than 45 minutes to a major airport. Very pedestrian friendly (walk to the essentials, public transit for the other stuff), but able to have a car. Love NYC, but too expensive and too crazy. Boston is just a bit too far north. Right now we’re looking seriously at Providence, RI, and the DC metro area.</p>
<p>^^ Totally agree with you dmd77.
That’s how we decided to split time between Florida and a lake in Alabama. No matter where our kids land, they’ll enjoy visiting Florida in the winter and will want to hang out at the lake in the summer. Figured it would be a good draw for grandkids too.</p>
<p>Not sure anyone has mentioned Lancaster, PA, where I currently live.</p>
<p>Lancaster County is a beautiful area of rolling hills, great communities, and still lots of open land. The weather is mild, but obviously 4 season weather. It is just about 500,000 people currently, and it is a growing retirement area. It still has the charm of the local Amish communities. It is close (but not too close…) to Philadelphia to our east and Baltimore to our south (each 75-90 minutes), DC (2 hours), and NYC (3 hours). It has a beautiful, historic Amtrak station currently undergoing a huge renovation, that can get you to any of those cities, or out to Harrisburg or further West. There is actually a small commercial airport in Lancaster with service to Baltimore, and Harrisburg Intl. Airport is 35 minutes away.</p>
<p>Lancaster city is a very historic area, settled in the early 1700’s and was the US capital for one day (!), and the PA capital for 13 years before Harrrisburg was made capital in 1812. There is a great walkable downtown undergoing a renaissance with shops, restaurants, theaters, and the usual historic sights, and a vibrant ‘Central Market’. A brand new Marriott Convention Center was built downtown a couple of years ago, and this has spurred further growth downtown. There are multiple colleges in the area, including Franklin and Marshall bordering the downtown area. Healthcare in the area is excellent with 2 hospitals downtown and physicians trained at major academic centers in Philly/Baltimore/etc. Taxes are reasonable, probably falling in the middle of the country.</p>
<p>There are many areas that people are moving to in Lancaster, but the downtown area is probably the fastest growing for all of the reasons noted above. I’ve lived here now for 10 years and am really happy and excited to be here. There is constant improvement in the amenities offered in the area, including downtown’s first true wine bar opening last week. It is truly a great area to live, raise a family, and retire, and we are seeing an influx of people from all parts of the country to our slice of heaven.</p>
<p>Jumping on what Frazzled said about Nashville: now that I’ve been here for a while, I don’t think of it as a Country Music town, but rather as a songwriter’s town. And as for politics, while the outlying areas are as red as red can be, Davidson County is blue. There are a few very trendy areas in Nashville: 12South, the Gulch, and Sylvan Park.</p>
<p>Life in Chapel Hill is great. Buses are free, medical care is highly rated. There are many learning and cultural opportunities. Speakers, authors, classes, Playmakers Theatre, The NC Symphony, NC Botanical Gardens, trails and the students make Chapel Hill a vibrant community. But the sports, you can’t live here and fail to find a love for one sport or another. I never liked sports until I met some of the students, I went to watch them to give them support and I became a booster! My taxes are fairly high but I like to walk to all the sporting events, if you live out of town across the county line, taxes drop and housing prices do to. The airport in Raleigh is very convenient. We are midway between the mountains and the beach. There are terrific farmers markets here and great restaurants. The economy is good here due to the fact that our two big employers are the University and the hospital.</p>
<p>Lexington KY - At one point when job situation was bleak, we considered taking jobs there. It seemed like a nice area. One of the “cons” was that we really felt we’d want to be back in CO for retirement. </p>
<p>Hopefully we can stay in our current town, current house. It has relatively low taxes, and there’d be plenty of room for kids and grandkids(?) to visit. If CO doesn’t draw the kids back here for jobs, it could provide fun vacation activities and skiing. We have many medical facilities here and more about an hour away in Denver. More importantly, we have roots in the community, church etc. I have a hard time envisioning restart in a new place. </p>
<p>It would be nice if we have enough funds to also do some traveling. We’ve discussed the possibility of going places for a month at a time. We like watching “House Hunters International”, but we have no desire (or budget) to own a second property. In 10 years maybe we should coordinate CC house swapping?</p>
<p>hayden asked what areas of DC we’re interested in. To be honest, we’re having a tough time with that. Most of the suburbs are much too car dependent. I’d love to live near Cleveland Park or Van Ness metro stations, but doubt we can afford it. Everyone tells us we would like Tacoma Park, but the one time I wandered around there I wasn’t impressed. I saw some nice townhouses near the Potomac/Stadium-Armory metro stops, but I worry about the safety of that area. I love DC, and in theory can see myself living there, but in reality I can’t figure out which area I’d want to live in. </p>
<p>My latest thought is to rent in DC for a year or two just to get it out of my system, and then move to Providence. Both DC and Providence fit dmd77’s criteria (I went to Brown, so there are always alumni friends who come back to visit).</p>
<p>fireandrain, thanks, that was helpful. You’re doing exactly what I’m thinking of, including the idea of renting for a year or so. </p>
<p>Have you considered Fredericksburg? Although it’s not on the metro of course, I’m told it’s a short train into Union Station. It seems to be a bit lower priced, but I’m not sure about that.</p>