PROVIDENCE – In the U.S. News & World Report 2018 100 Best Places to Retire in the USA, Providence ranked No. 87.
The rankings measured desirability, value, job market, quality of life and migration, also taking into account retiree tax rates, housing affordability, happiness and health care quality for metropolitan areas of varying sizes.
Providence received an overall score of 6.1 for retirement. Each ranking was scored out of 10.
The Providence metro scored highest for health care at 7.7 points. The city’s job market rating scored a 6.6. Desirability was the city’s lowest score at 5.4 points. The city scored a 6.4 for quality of life, a 5.6 for value and a 5.5 for net migration.
Providence also scored a 5.6 for housing affordability. The city took a hit for value for its housing costs in comparison to median household income in comparison to the national average.
Sarasota, Fla., ranked No. 1 on the list on the strength of its scores for net migration, desirability and quality of life. Sarasota was also the highest ranked medium-sized city, with a population of 500,000 to 1 million.
Of metro areas considered large of a similar size, Providence was flanked by Sacramento, Calif. (No. 84 overall), and Salt Lake City (No. 88). Providence was denoted as a large city in this study.
Washington, D.C., ranked the highest of any city with more than 2.5 million residents at No. 10 in the study.
San Antonio ranked the highest of any city with 1 million to 2.5 million residents at No. 3 on the list.
Fayetteville, Ark., was the highest-rated small city (between 50,000 and 500,000 residents) on the list at No. 14. The only other small city to make the top 100 was Santa Rosa, Calif.
Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor.
