St. Louis as retirement paradise? Forbes thinks so
Big cities like St. Louis aren’t usually thought of as retirement destinations, but Forbes argues that maybe they should be. Cities offer job opportunities to senior citizens who think they may have to go back to work at some point, plus they offer public transportation and a variety of housing types. When the magazine crunched some numbers on the nation’s 40 biggest metro areas with the idea of picking “recession-proof cities to retire in.” St. Louis tied with Austin, Texas, for fifth place. That puts us ahead of traditional retirement destinations like Phoenix, No. 8, and Miami, No. 29. Bustling Atlanta grabbed first place, followed by Dallas, Tampa-St. Petersburg and Houston.
What makes St. Louis so appealing? Mostly our low housing costs. We rank in the lower half of metro areas on income and amount of sunshine, but we have the third-lowest cost of living.
(8 votes, average: 2.75 out of 5)
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
What a great picture to have accompanying the headline “Heaven for Retirees?” on the main page: A hunched-over elderly person holding himself up with a cane while struggling to shovel snow by himself. Shouldn’t such an appealing picture go on a brochure or something?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Well, on second thought the photo will be changed. It was chosen to illustrate that the weather here is not necessarily considered very ‘retiree friendly’ but it was not meant to be insensitive…Thanks for pointing out the problems.
LOL, Jimmy. Good one.
I suppose they could add another of a thug robbing one walking home with groceries.
Great idea. Let’s take people with the most severe joint sensitivity and most common occurance of arthritis, and put them in the city that doesn’t see a season without freeze, heat, storm, or tornado warnings. High and low daily temperatures 40 degrees apart? No biggie!
It’s so great that when an elderly person needs help shoveling snow we pick a camera and take a picture.
“Heaven for Retirees?” Maybe for low housing costs, but what about crime? Does anybody not see the vultures moving in on seniors who can’t and won’t be allowed to protect themselves. Heaven - they’d meet their maker sooner than expected.
Don’t worry, they changed the picture. This new one just oozes class. Wow.
My dad is retirement age and lives in St. Louis. However, he thinks so little of the weather here that he typically spends a month in Mexico in the winter, and this year, he took a second month-long trip.
There are some ugly, white hatefuls in the St. Louis metro area. Lots of mean geriatrics and boomers too that I have come across. Over the years, there has been middle class Black flight out of St. Louis and young people are wanting to move away for better opportunities and better weather elsewhere. Sometimes it is worth it to move to a high-cost city where the quality of life is better and where there are interesting and diverse people of all ages. Many older white people and elder boomers are hateful and resentful toward the existence of young people. They are in competition mode and want to keep them down and deprived. Many do not want young people to succeed. You see it at the workplace and all around.
I am not a retiree, but I have lived in Southern Arizona as well as many other places. The weather in St. Louis is not that bad, and if one is in the right location, affordable housing with reasonable transit alternatives do exist in our metro area.
Additionally, in regards to the weather: I think the weather here is the best of both worlds. The summers are warm enough, while the winters are not terribly bitter. As I mentioned, I grew up in Arizona, enduring 100 degree plus temperatures for 8 months of the year, then went to college in Iowa, where it snows from October until the end of April. I choose the middle ground. I am under the impression that many of those people who complain about the weather here have not lived elsewhere.
John, you aren’t seriously suggesting that “problem” is exclusive to St. Louis, are you?