Forbes Lists Grand Rapids As Best Place To Retire In Michigan

When you have a growing family, your choice of home locations is heavily dependent on the school district. However, those priorities change when it comes to retirement. Where should you celebrate the fall of your life? Forbes has come out with a list of the best cities in which to retire in every state.

To create the list, Forbes compared data on more than 650 places across all 50 states. Some of the things that they looked at were the availability of doctors, the rate of serious crimes, ranking on the Milken Institute list of best cities for successful aging, air quality and walkability and bikeability.

Data on local school districts was ignored, however presence of colleges was considered a plus, as that tends to expand cultural and other amenities for senior citizens.

In Michigan, Forbes chose Grand Rapids as the best place to retire. With a population of 196,000 and the medium home cost of $152,000, Grand Rapids scored the best. Forbes says,

"Grand Rapids is home to five of the world’s leading office furniture companies and is nicknamed the Furniture City. The city hosts a number of festivals, many of which take place at its Vandenberg Plaza, including the Celebration on the Grand and Festival of the Arts. Grand Rapids is home to myriad theatres and stages, including the Civic Theatre, DeVos Hall, and the historic Wealthy Theatre."

The runner up city in Michigan was Traverse City. Forbes lists the pros of TC as,

"Doctors per capita above national average. Highly walkable. No state estate/inheritance tax, no state income tax on Social Security earnings, state income tax break on pension income. "

The cons for Traverse City are: Cold winters.