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What U.S. Cities are the Best Places for Retirement? Portfolio.com ranks the Most Attractive for Seniors

Top Ten List Dominated By Warm Weather Cities

December 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Portfolio.com – the national business news site for small and mid-sized business (SMB) executives – today revealed its latest U.S. Uncovered study, ranking the most popular and desired cities for retirement.

The study, which used a six-part formula to rank 157 metropolitan and micropolitan markets with at least 40,000 seniors, named Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida as the number one choice for seniors' post-retirement plans.

"Beginning next year, an unprecedented three million Americans will turn 65. While most of these seniors are expected to stay in their current homes, a significant number will decide to seek new places to live in other parts of the country," said J. Jennings Moss, editor of Portfolio.com.

"In addition to warm cities, we've also seen that seniors are attracted to communities that already have a significant population of retirees. This demonstrates that seniors will go to places that already have a comfortable infrastructure in place."

Already thought to be the classic retirement destination, the state of Florida is home to eight of the top ten cities in the survey, with Bradenton-Sarasota taking the top spot.

Senior citizens represent 26.81 percent of the city's population, which is more than double the national average of 12.9 percent.

With a population of 688,126, Bradenton-Sarasota is the largest city among the top 10, while Homosassa Springs, Fla. (#7) is the smallest with a population of 140,357. More than 95 percent of seniors residing inBradenton-Sarasota were born out of state compared to only 53 percent of the elderly residents of a typical U.S. market who were born out of state.

Two cities from Arizona earned a place in the top 10. Prescott, Ariz. ranked #2 in the study with 23.6 percent of its population comprised of seniors. Lake Havasu City, Ariz. followed directly behind taking the #3 spot. The rest of the top 10 are occupied by Florida cities including Cape Carol-Fort Myers, Naples,Palm Bay-Melbourne, Homosassa Springs, Ocala, Punta Gorda and Port St. Lucie.

"The study explores a wide variety of markets, both in terms of size and geography. The markets that ranked the highest in the study were areas where the population of seniors is already substantial and growing rapidly," said G. Scott Thomas, a nationally-recognized demographer who created the analysis for Portfolio.com.

"While not surprising that many cities in the top 30 were from the southeast and southwest, there are several cities that have broken the stereotype of beach retirement communities includingSeaford, Del. (#13), Barnstable, Mass. (#14) and Eugene, Ore. (#29) from the north."

The study used data from the American Community Survey, which was conducted in 2009 and released in September 2010 by the U.S. Census Bureau. Data was used from the top 157 metropolitan and micropolitan areas with at least 40,000 residents that can be classified as seniors.

Rankings were determined using six statistical indicators: seniors as a share of the total population, median age, seniors born out of state, incoming seniors, difference in out-of-state births and difference in incoming rates.

The U.S. Uncovered series provides original, insightful analysis of the American lifestyle and business trends of interest to the highly lucrative market of small- and mid-sized business executives, who will fuel the country's economic recovery over the next five years.  

Most recently, the U.S. Uncovered revealed the most educated cities with a unique "Brainpower Index," ranking Boulder, Colo. as America's smartest city.

The series also disclosed the rankings of the cities with the "Highest Income Growth," ranking El Paso as the city with the most growth potential; "Most Stressful Place in America," ranking Detroit as the most stressful city; "Best Mid-size Places to Live" ranking Boulder, CO as the small city with the highest quality of life; "Best Big Places to Live," ranking Raleigh as #1;  "Best Cities to have fun," ranking New York City as #1; "Top U.S. Wealth Centers," naming Newport Beach as #1; "Small Business Vitality," naming Texas the best state and Austin the top city for small business; and "Best Places for Young Adults," naming the Southwestern region the new frontier for young Americans with Austin as #1.

About Portfolio.com

Portfolio.com is the national business news site for small and mid-sized business executives. Comprising original, in-depth reporting, thought-provoking insights, colorful features, exclusive analysis of custom research, and an intelligent business-news filtering tool, Portfolio.com is the first national business media outlet dedicated solely to delivering actionable news and information to this coveted audience. Portfolio.com relaunched in December 2009 as the information destination for business executives, insiders and strategists within the growing and profitable American City Business Journals.

About American City Business Journals

American City Business Journals engages 13.5 million decision makers each month through the company's 40 newsweeklies, 42 Web sites, digital newsletters and more than 400 local events across the country. It is the largest publisher of business-to-business information in the United States. More than 4 million readers each week engage with exclusive, in-depth coverage of local business communities; some 9 million unique monthly users engage with the company's digital content; more than 11 million e-newsletters are delivered each month via email; and the company sees more than 1 million mobile page views each month. American City is a unit of Advance Publications Inc., which also operates Condé Nast Magazines, Parade magazine, Fairchild Publications, the Golf Digest companies, Newhouse Newspapers and cable television interests.