Home Retirement Find Out if the Rust Belt Is Right for Your Retirement

Find Out if the Rust Belt Is Right for Your Retirement

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Other recent reports tout Rust Belt cities as ripe to welcome or retain retirees.

U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 ranking of the best places to retire, which measures metro areas on affordability and quality-of-life criteria like housing costs, crime rates and access to quality health care, gives major props to old steel towns like Allentown, Pennsylvania (No. 5), and Youngstown, Ohio (No. 9), cities so linked in the popular imagination to the perils of deindustrialization that Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, respectively, wrote songs about them.

Cities in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois occupy eight of the top 10 spots in a February 2024 report from Homebuyer.com on the most affordable places to buy a house, spotlighting what Dan Green, the online mortgage company’s CEO, calls “hidden gems” for retirees.

Esplanade along the Ohio River in Smale Riverfront Park, Cincinnati, Ohio

Giant swings beckon strollers to take in Ohio River vistas in Cincinnati’s Smale Riverfront Park.

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“The Rust Belt is undergoing revitalization, in part to rebuild a tax base, even as its housing costs have remained reasonable,” he says.

‘Welcoming vibe’

Green, whose firm is based in Cincinnati, is a big fan of the city and the relative value it offers retirees.

“This isn’t rooted in data, but a lot of these reinvigorated cities have a friendly, welcoming vibe,” he says. “They’re wonderful museum and restaurant cities. People who grew up here are more likely to stay — or move back when they retire.”

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When an airport in Blue Ash, a suburb north of Cincinnati, was decommissioned in 2012, local and state planners turned it into Summit Park, a mix of green space, entertainment and shopping with an adjacent, privately developed independent and assisted living community. Closer to town, Cincinnati’s German heritage has been tapped to spur an explosion of brewpubs and retail areas where it is legal to carry a beer from shop to shop. Retirees are regular customers, Green says.

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Flowers and plants for sale at City Market, Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City’s historic City Market bustles daily with locals buying plants, produce, specialty goods or a gourmet meal.

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Cincinnati’s population, on the downslide since the 1960s, is now ticking upward, notes Chris Hais, a certified financial planner with Queen City Financial Advisors in the city. “You get the affordability, plus all the entertainment and health care benefits,” he says.

In Kansas City, more people are opting to age in their hometown, says Bret Guillaume, president of local financial advisory firm Mader Shannon. The city has invested heavily in rebuilding its downtown, adding streetcars, overseeing the conversion of old warehouses into loft living spaces and preparing to host several 2026 FIFA World Cup soccer matches.

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