What Makes a Great Retirement Town? Our Scoring Methodology Explained

Choosing where to retire is one of the most consequential decisions a person can make, and we take the responsibility of ranking retirement towns seriously. Our Best Towns for Retirees list uses a tailored version of the ZACSUM scoring methodology, weighted to reflect what actually matters when your commute disappears and your priorities shift.

The foundation of our retiree scoring is built on four pillars: walkability, cost of living, safety, and healthcare access. Each of these pillars carries significant weight in the final composite score, but they're not weighted equally — because they don't matter equally to retirees.

Walkability is the single most important factor in our retiree rankings, and here's why. When you retire, your daily life becomes intensely local. Can you walk to the grocery store? The pharmacy? A coffee shop or library? A town with a Walk Score above 70 means that most daily errands can be handled on foot, which matters more as driving becomes less desirable or feasible. We pull Walk Score data for the town center and weight it heavily. Towns with sprawling, car-dependent layouts get penalized, regardless of how charming they might be.

Cost of living is the second pillar. We use a composite that includes median home values, property tax rates, state income tax burden, and a general cost-of-living index. For retirees on fixed incomes, the difference between a town with a $250,000 median home value and one at $500,000 isn't just a number — it's the difference between comfort and stress. We also factor in whether the state taxes Social Security income and retirement account withdrawals, because those details matter at tax time.

Safety is scored using FBI Uniform Crime Report data, normalized per capita to ensure fair comparisons between towns of different sizes. We look at both violent crime and property crime rates. For retirees, feeling safe in your neighborhood isn't a luxury — it's a prerequisite. Towns with crime rates significantly above the national average are penalized proportionally.

Healthcare access is where our retiree methodology diverges most from our general rankings. We evaluate proximity to hospitals, the number of primary care physicians per capita, and the availability of specialists within a reasonable driving distance. A beautiful small town two hours from the nearest hospital is a risky proposition for someone in their 70s. We also look at the density of urgent care facilities and pharmacies. This data comes from CMS and state health department records.

Beyond the four pillars, we incorporate several secondary metrics. Climate plays a role — we evaluate average temperatures, extreme weather frequency, and air quality. Cultural amenities matter too: libraries, community centers, parks, and arts programming all contribute to quality of life in retirement. We measure these through a combination of public data and on-the-ground research.

One metric we deliberately exclude from the retiree rankings is school quality. It's important in our family-oriented lists but irrelevant for most retirees and would distort the scores.

The weighting is calibrated through a combination of survey data — what do retirees actually say matters most — and outcome research on retirement satisfaction. Walkability and healthcare access together account for roughly 45% of the composite score. Cost of living contributes about 25%. Safety adds 20%. The remaining 10% is distributed across secondary metrics.

Every score is normalized on a 0-to-100 scale, which allows apples-to-apples comparisons between very different towns. A coastal Florida town and a Vermont village can be evaluated on the same framework, even though their lifestyles are completely different.

We update the retiree rankings annually, pulling fresh data each cycle. Housing prices shift. Crime rates fluctuate. New healthcare facilities open. The rankings reflect the most current picture we can assemble.

If you're starting your retirement search, our Best Towns for Retirees list is the place to begin. You can filter by state, sort by individual metrics, and drill into the full profile of any town that catches your eye. The goal isn't to tell you where to retire — it's to give you the data to make that decision with confidence.