Go west, not-so-young man
Florida is no longer the preferred choice as a retirement haven
Don and Maggie Denton always figured they'd retire in Florida. For 15 years the two business and estate analysts had bounced between offices near Orlando and in Columbus, Ohio. So when Don, at age 62, and Maggie, 59, decided to simplify their lives prior to retiring, they sold their Ohio home and 8,000-square-foot Florida house and downsized to a home less than half the size in Disney's new town of Celebration. That, they thought, would be their last move.
Don laughs--now. "We quickly realized there was no way we were going to stay in Florida," he says. The Dentons found the heat and humidity oppressive from May to September. Most of their neighbors were still raising kids, not flashing photos of grandkids. And bingo at the local senior center wasn't their idea of staying active. As retirement inched closer, Celebration's picket fences began to lose their charm. "Suddenly the question was: 'Now that we're going to retire, what are we going to do?' " says Maggie.
Zeroing in. And so, after a few years of alligator-watching from the front porch, the couple found themselves Googling for a new place to live. They zeroed in on Sun City Anthem, an age-restricted community in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb 15 minutes from the Strip. Their new view, from their back patio, overlooks the fairways of the community's golf course and the glittering lights of Sin City in the valley below. "This is like Disney World and Universal for adults," says Don. "Not only do you have great hospitals, great universities, and great neighborhoods, but you have shows and restaurants."
Retirees still flock to Florida, of course, but their net has widened. "The gap between Florida and everyplace else has narrowed," says William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution and the University of Michigan. Today's retirement magnets are university towns, resort destinations, and suburban oases of major cities. They are small cities like Oxford, Miss.; Madison, Wis.; and Medford, Ore. They are regions like the Pacific Northwest, the Texas Hill Country, and the Ozarks.
Retirees are flooding into new developments in America's desert Southwest and the Rockies. Between 1990 and 2000, according to census data, Nevada showed the greatest percentage increase among all states in people 65 and older (72 percent), followed by Alaska (60 percent), Arizona (39 percent), and New Mexico (30 percent). The over-65 populations in Phoenix, San Antonio, Denver, and Las Cruces, N.M., all showed double-digit growth rates during the '90s.
No metropolitan region saw bigger gains than Nevada's Las Vegas Valley. Between 1990 and 2000, the over-65 population in the Las Vegas metro area grew 86 percent--from about 99,000 to more than 184,000. Most of these new recruits are buying into fast-growing suburbs like Henderson, which until recently was an industrial outpost. Today, it is the second-largest city in Nevada, boasting four retirement communities, a senior center, and eight golf courses.
To residents, the city's single greatest attraction isn't the Strip but the surrounding desert hill country. Valley of Fire State Park, Death Valley, and other state and national re-creation areas all are within a day's drive. "Every hole is a scenic wonder," says retired ad executive Mike Tobey, 64, of the view of the Red Rock Mountains from the Falls golf course in Lake Las Vegas, a planned development patterned on an Italian seaside retreat, east of Henderson. "Sometimes we come down the fairway, and we see bighorn mountain sheep grazing. You would think that you were in Montana, not Las Vegas."
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