Scottsdale Named America's Best Retirement City
Move over, Florida. The best place to retire in America is not on a beach. It is right here in our backyard.
Scottsdale earned the top spot on Niche.com's annual best places to retire list, beating out popular retirement havens like Clearwater, St. Petersburg, and Cape Coral in Florida. The ranking platform evaluated over 230 cities using data from the U.S. Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the CDC, combined with millions of resident reviews.
For anyone who lives in the Valley, this probably feels less like breaking news and more like confirmation of what we already knew. Scottsdale earned high marks for safety, outdoor activities, fitness culture, nightlife, and dining. The city received an A grade for fitness and nightlife, with local experts pointing to the sheer number of gyms, hiking trails, golf courses, and restaurants as major draws.
Niche evaluated 16 factors including cost of living, climate, healthcare access, walkability, and percentage of residents over 65. While Scottsdale scored a modest C+ for housing, with a median home value near $710,000 and median rent around $1,910, the city's other advantages more than compensated.
Arizona as a whole is naturally attractive to retirees. The state does not tax Social Security benefits and maintains a flat income tax rate of just 2.5 percent. Nearly one in five Arizona residents is 65 or older, well above the national average.
Healthcare costs in Scottsdale run about 12 percent below the national average, and the city sits minutes from Phoenix's extensive hospital network. Add in 211 sunny days a year, easy access to McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Saguaro Lake, and a seemingly endless supply of golf courses, and it is easy to see why retirees are choosing desert sunsets over ocean breezes.
The rest of the country is finally catching on to what Valley residents have known all along.
Sources: Niche | Reader's Digest | Parade | Yahoo/Fortune | PODS | Islands