#rural Colorado is very American Midwest but it has so many big cities

[femslashspuffy]

Colorado is so greedy my hometown now has a Raising Canes, In-N-Out, AND a Buckees. Plus if you drive a little more than an hour you can go to a Pizza Ranch. There's a reason no one can agree on what part of the country Colorado is because it wants to be every part.

[ginalinettiofficial]

a usa starter pack

alabama / deep south, conservative, hillbillies

alaska / far north, cold, nature, conservative rich white ppl + lots of native culture

arizona / hot, dry, scorpions, great mexican food

arkansas / yeehaw

california / socal is california of tv, norcal is hippies smoking a lot of weed

colorado / weed capital of the states, also lots of nature and skiiing

connecticut / to quote an SNL skit: “the haunting in connecticut?? what’s scary about connecticut?? losing your tennis racket at the pottery barn??”

delaware / ngl i never remember that delaware exists and i’ve never met anyone from here or heard anyone mention delaware ever. might be fake

florida / where the craziest shit happens. giant swamp with many major party areas as well as hella alligators, crazy politics, retirees, and felons galore. we all stan and fear florida

georgia / southern af but also p black. deep bible belt but atlanta is POPPIN and a super fun city.

hawaii / we colonized them and now like to invade their home regularly as tourists which sucks. hawaii is a cool little nation w lots of volcanoes

idaho / they make potatoes and racists

illinois / north side of the state is where chicago is, a HUGE liberal center in the US. very midwestern. as you get more south, becomes rural, small town, conservative middle america.

indiana / v conservative politically, illinois’ twin and bud, that’s where we get all our guns and fireworks. v midwestern. parks and rec is set in indiana and that’s p much all u need to know

iowa / worst state in the union everyone from iowa is just WEIRD yes i AM an iowa hater and i am PROUD. if u tell me ur from iowa i don’t trust you

kansas / they’re p chill. conservative state w some fun cities and midwestern weather. kansas city is cool

kentucky / horse races and hillbillies

louisiana / it’s a damn party. deep south, major french influence from back in the day, swamps, large african american population, new orleans is a jam, debatably the most melodic of southern accents

maine / rich white ppl in vests and chinos sailing on boats and eating lobster

maryland / baltimore & DC make maryland a pretty blue state

massachusetts / boston owns all of our assess. beautiful sprawling state w lots of old ass houses cuz it’s colonial and shit. boston has over a hundred universities so the whole area is very youthful and fun

michigan / michigan is vaguely shaped like a mitten so if u ever ask a person from michigan where they’re from they hold up their hand and point to somewhere on it as if their hand is a map

minnesota / the canada of the US. snowy, cold, midwestern af, hockey, casserole, mall of america

mississippi / s o u t h. education?? never heard of her. quality of life?? good joke

missouri / basically rhymes with misery and that’s all you need to know

montana / i think they have mountains and ranches and white ppl but don’t quote me on that

nebraska / even their cities are rural

nevada / las vegas and a whole lot of desert

new hampshire / whomst knows. one of those small east coast states

new jersey / new jersey is the florida of the north

new mexico / again, the border crossed them. basically arizona jr but they get mad if u say that

new york / nyc and then a bunch of suburban ppl who are mad they’re not from nyc but will go to their graves denying it

north carolina / racist white ppl who talk way too much about the confederacy in 2019

north dakota / one of the dakotas has that mountain with the four heads carved into it. that’s IT

ohio / ohio is deceiving cuz it has about six major cities and they’re all like fun and cool???? they all start w the letter c tho so good luck remembering which is which

oklahoma / ooooooooooklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plains (there’s a musical called oklahoma and it’s iconic) they share kansas city with kansas which is fun. cross between the south and the midwest

oregon / hipsters and rain

pennsylvania / philly is poppin, pittsburgh is slightly less poppin, scranton is where the office is set

rhode island / she smol

south carolina / see north carolina but with more ghosts and better food

south dakota / see north dakota

tennessee / memphis and nashville are FUN. p southern, p conservative, GREAT barbecue and huge music scene

texas / it’s texas

utah / mormons and conservatism

vermont / this is where bernie sanders and the people who make ben & jerry’s ice cream are all from

virginia / dc is in the north part of virginia which helps to split it into nova, the blue/urban/liberal part of the state, and sova, the conservative confederate lovin’ christians

washington / oregon but even more rain

west virginia / might be fake

wisconsin / cheese and beer and classic midwestern attitudes

wyoming / she’s a beaut ngl. it’s basically one big national park with some ppl sprinkled in here and there. harrison ford lives here

[sixtyfivehundredmiles]

The Great Siphoning: Drought-Stricken Areas Eye the Great Lakes

"Water, water everywhere" is the egalitarian vision of those who don't have enough of it and would like to tap the Great Lakes to get it.

Outside Two Harbors, Minn., on a cliff overlooking the broad expanse of Lake Superior, you are overwhelmed by grandeur — shimmering water, crashing waves, a down-bound ore boat on the horizon, miniaturized by distance.

As you fill your senses, you may be unaware of the invisible others behind you — 2,000 miles or so behind you, to the southwest — eyeing the Great Lakes in another spirit, coveting all that water.

Lake Superior is big, all right. It and the other Great Lakes contain one-fifth of the whole world’s fresh water and, get this, hold enough to submerge the continental U.S. under 10 feet.

Those far-off onlookers thirst mightily for the Lakes’ 6.5 million billion gallons of fresh water that, to them, just sits there before running off to the ocean. Wasted.

It’s easy for us lake-landers to dismiss such thoughts, but those in the American Southwest are up against a 17-year drought that keeps getting worse. After an unusually warm winter, it’s expected to worsen still more this summer due to a dearth of mountain snow that will again leave Colorado River flow far below normal, with forecasts of dry and very hot weather à la La Niña.

What’s beyond scary is that NASA computer models indicate that the West could be facing a 50-year megadrought, the first such event since long before Europeans even knew North America existed. Moreover, higher temperatures and wind wrought by climate change dry things out and increase demand for irrigation water while at the same time increasing already problematic evaporation rates from reservoirs and canals.

Primary water sources in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California are dangerously low. Benchmarks are the historically low Lake Mead reservoir behind Hoover Dam (built in 1930) and similar low levels of Lake Powell on the upstream end of the Grand Canyon. Las Vegas, which draws 90 percent of its water from Lake Mead, has twice lowered its intake “straw” due to falling levels.

One relief option is desalination of ocean water, but scaling up that technology has proved frustratingly difficult and outrageously expensive. The largest existing plant, at San Diego, provides only 7 percent of that city’s needs.

Another option is to strictly restrict water use, but that’s politically dicey and can’t get much beyond talk.

Then there’s a plan to spend gazillions to capture several of Alaska’s free-flowing rivers with a grand network of dams, canals and tunnels to divert water south to the Colorado basin. It seems that the drought is getting serious enough so that even far-fetched ideas get a look.

So OK, now what?

To desert dwellers, an idea that makes intuitive sense is to pipe Lake Superior water to where it’s “needed.” Such a project would be staggeringly expensive but technically doable; besides, the Great Lakes surely wouldn’t miss, say, 50 billion gallons — would they?

The populace all around the Lakes is rock-solid against shipping any water anywhere, and advancing any diversion plan would set off political warfare.

Or perhaps one should say “renew hostilities.” This story isn’t new. In 2007, New Mexico’s then-Gov. Bill Richardson suggested a Great Lakes diversion when the Western drought was only six years old. Following bloodcurdling protest, fellow Democrat Jennifer Granholm, then Michigan’s governor, told Richardson to zip it. A year later the eight Lakes states, including Minnesota, adopted — and President George W. Bush signed — a compact banning diversions without concurrence of all signatories.

Plus, an international pact gives Canada (along with the federal government in D.C.) a veto over any transfer.

But because the ultimate power rests with Congress and the president, multistate compacts and international accords can be false security. What’s done can be undone, as evidenced by all the undoing from today’s Washington crowd. What’s more, some scholars say the compact could be vulnerable to legal challenge, especially if a national emergency were declared.

A political knockdown would pit the Midwest vs. Westerners accustomed to no-holds-barred combat for water (to the death in the Wild West) and who have tended, when all else failed, to get what they wanted by simply taking it (for example, the lands of indigenous tribes).

The West sees some things in its favor, politically. One is mushrooming population that’s tipping the power balance in Congress. Another is the always-powerful agriculture industry in the West. And still another is that Western states stick together like fired clay to leverage their will over all things land and water. Besides, they’ll argue, water is a resource that, like oil, must be shared.

And so, a prediction: Within the lifetime of today’s newborn, Great Lakes water will be piped to the Colorado basin to relieve a region that by midcentury will be in the throes of an unimaginable water crisis.

This notion was advocated last year by NASA’s chief water scientist at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who added that national water shortages are more serious than most realize — and may be unsolvable.

On several levels, it’s frankly absurd to pipe water across the country to bail out overbuilt cities and nourish water-intensive crops in bone-bleaching desert. But growth-driven Westerners dismiss such talk. This war would come down to raw power politics, and it’s only a matter of time before the West’s political influence prevails.

Consider: Less than 80 years ago, North Dakota had more electoral votes than Arizona, and Phoenix was a remote outpost. Today, Arizona has more people than North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota combined. That kind of growth is evident throughout the Southwest, which means more and more members of Congress are being sent by dry states rather than by the water-rich Midwest.

It’s not realistic to think that pioneers more than a century ago could have foreseen today’s mess. Western settlement was blindly driven by Manifest Destiny back then, and land and water were both considered limitless.

Today, the West’s chief water user is agriculture, with three-fourths consumed by water-gulping crops like cotton, citrus, alfalfa and vegetables. Irrigated fields around hot, dry Yuma, Ariz., produce so many winter vegetables that nearly all of your salad comes from Yuma. Irrigated fields grow countless tons of alfalfa to feed livestock, crowded into giant feedlots nearby.

So much water is sucked from the Colorado to grow crops and quench thirsts that the river’s flow into Mexico is a relative trickle.

The Southwest’s water crisis is a result of dubious policy that pushed unsustainable growth, incented by federally financed dams, reservoirs and canals that delivered water at astonishingly low cost to cities and farmers.

Requirements that states and users repay the cost of building waterworks are often waived with little notice. Just one of these giant projects, the 336-mile concrete canal moving Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson, cost $4 billion to build in the 1970s ($26 billion today) and many millions to maintain. Relatively little has been repaid to taxpayers, or ever will be.

Another problem is that governments allocated Colorado River water based on 1920s projections, when river flows were abnormally high. When more reliable tree-ring analyses later exposed major distortions in projections, the West went into collective denial and did little to rein in explosive growth.

So, why should Great Lakes water be shipped to a desert where unrestrained growth continues? It shouldn’t be, but debating this one will get you into a sticky wicket of the outsized influence of infrastructure (water works, roads, bridges, wetland drainage, etc.) in too often enabling inefficient and harmful growth. Genuflection to development has skewed urban and rural planning since long before the country’s founding.

Diverting water west would require a 900-mile pipeline from Duluth to, most likely, Green River, Wyo. There, the river flows south into Utah and joins the Colorado near Moab.

It would be a colossal technical and financial undertaking.

Lifting, say, 50 billion gallons of water from Duluth by 5,500 vertical feet over the Continental Divide to Green River would consume the power of several hundred plants the size of Xcel Energy’s nuclear generator at Monticello.

The power sources would cost tens of billions to build and operate, on top of which would be billions more to install and maintain the pipeline.

And while 50 billion gallons sounds like a lot of water, it would take 10 times that amount to dent the Southwest drought.

These are dizzying numbers, but it’s a straightforward bargain plan compared with capturing and moving water south from Alaska.

Either way, taxpayers would surely get stuck with the tab — as the West keeps building cities and growing crops in bone-dry desert.

(source: Star Tribune)

[booklover4816]

Nope. Sounds pretty good if to me so far. What about Florida, Nevada, California, Utah, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Montana, and Washington. Sorry, gotta curious mind.

It’s okay! This is going to be long. One thing that you’ll quickly notice is that pretty much all of the states are tied into agriculture somehow. That’s because every state is part of the agricultural industry in someway and it’s the easiest thing for me to write about and use to tie them all together. Also, rural America doesn’t usually get a whole lot of love in most State fics.

Florida: Florida admittedly is hard for me to write. I have family who lives in Florida and I don’t want her to have any of their personality traits (because they’re awful people). I also need to do a lot more research. So far, Florida is a tough girl who is afraid of practically nothing, except driving in the snow. She loves gator hunting and fishing, but she also loves things like amusement parks, beaches, and politics (again, swing state). She also can’t stand any temperature below 55 degrees. Florida’s favorite hobby is growing oranges and she and California are in the middle of a fruit war with each other (who has the best oranges). She speaks fluent Spanish (mainly Cuban). She has wavy brunette hair (that is extremely frizzy due to the constant humidity) and gray eyes. Like I said, her personality is still under construction.

Nevada: Nevada was is known as the Battle Born State due to joining the Union in the middle of the Civil War, and her personality shows it. She seems cold on the outside mostly because she was brought up in the aftermath of the Civil War and saw first hand, at a very young age, what it had done to her siblings. She seems kind of aloof and has a bit of a pessimistic view on the world. But, once she opens up to someone, you’ll find her to be a very loving and caring person. She’s smart as a whip when it comes to science and gambling (even though she’s not supposed to) and she’s also an excellent shot (always carries a gun, and has named it Las Vegas). She’s chasing New Mexico away from Area 51 (Roswell, so he loves aliens), but she’s also always looking out for him and shares his love of science and aliens.Other than that, I need to do a bit more research on Nevada. This is just the basis of her personality. Appearance wise, she has long black hair as a reference to her Native American heritage and warm brown eyes. She also speaks Spanish and Navajo and always wears a pair of sunglasses that she has affectionately called Carson City.

California: California is a little like America in this story: the way she acts depends on who she’s around. She’s a big sister and kind of motherly to Hawaii, Arizona, and Nevada. She’s rivals with Florida and Texas (though she wouldn’t hesitate to stand up for them if someone was bothering them). She’s agriculturally focused when she’s around the Midwest and Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana (California is the US’s number one producer of agricultural products). She enjoys being a nerd with Washington, especially concerning tech and business, and being an outdoorsy hippy-like person with Oregon. And of course to anyone outside of her family, she’s a complete airhead. She likes portraying herself to strangers as the stuck up, ditzy  Hollywood type, but in all actuality is extremely smart, focused, hardworking, and driven. She truly is America’s daughter.She’s extremely beautiful with glossy, wavy brunette hair (she’s lucky and always has a good hair day) and sapphire eyes. She also has a permanent tan and can pass a Mexico’s sister (Mexico is actually her aunt by blood, and they are very close). She’s also one of the only states that has a mother (the Californian Republic was briefly independent). She speaks Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, and a few other languages.

Utah: Utah’s one that I need to do a lot of research on. The extent of my knowledge on Utah currently is Great Salt Lake, Mormons, honeybees, and skiing. It’s pathetic, I know but I’m planning on doing research before I write her chapter. So far, though, she does have a basic personality. Religion is a very important aspect of her life; however she doesn’t really identify with a specific one out of respect to all of the people in her state, so she’s more spiritual. She’s very active and outdoorsy; she enjoys skiing, hiking, and mountain climbing with the other Four Corners States. She also is a huge supporter of the National Parks, and hers are her pride and joy (Utah has a ton of National Parks). And then, Utah is the Beehive State, so I want to incorporate that into her characterization but I’m not quite sure how I want to do that yet. She has brown hair and green eyes.

Mississippi: Once upon a time, America tried to raise Mississippi like a lady (this was back in the early 1800’s), but then Alabama came along and that was the end of that. Mississippi is a tomboy, much like Ohio. She loves football and hunting and doing other stuff that would have been considered “boyish” when she was small. Still, she loves cooking with Georgia and Louisiana and hanging out with Alabama and Florida. She tends to be more conservative; however, she personally prefers making informed decisions and sticking to her morals. Again, I need to do more research on Mississippi, especially before I decide how I want to address the Civil Rights issues with Mississippi’s past.

Oklahoma: Out of all of her siblings, Oklahoma is closest to Texas. They really are two peas in a pod and share a lot of interests: ranching, rodeos, food, religion,(though both, like Utah, are non-denominational out of respect for all of their citizens), music, etc. She is actively involved with her Native American heritage and speaks many native languages as well as Spanish. She’s very sweet and kind and takes everything that America says to heart, always obeying what he tells her to do and taking his words literally. She has shoulder length brunette hair and green eyes. And again, I need to do more research on Oklahoma before I start tying history to her personality.

West Virginia: I get so many reviews about West Virginia and he hasn’t even appeared yet, but I get it. Many people write West Virginia as a stupid hillbilly, which I guess is kind of the stereotype outside of the state, and that’s just offensive. So, West Virginia is outdoorsy. He just loves being outside and being active. He also enjoys doing things with people he’s close to, and he doesn’t really care what it is: playing football with Ohio, spending a day in D.C. with Virginia, hunting with Pennsylvania. As long as he has fun and he’s bonding with one of his siblings, he doesn’t mind.He suffers from slight social anxiety, but once he trusts someone, he’s super friendly. He loves history and his favorite activity is touring abandoned mines (he used to work in them, but America wasn’t too fond of that and child labor laws…) He has light red hair (a nod to his Scottish and Irish heritage) that’s light enough to pass as strawberry blonde in some lighting, and brown eyes. He actually shares these traits with Virginia (as a nod to the fact they used to be the same state), though Virginia’s color is closer to brunette, but he absolutely hates this. He strives to make himself stand out from Virginia so people don’t mistake them for twins (they’re not) and he hates her constant mothering of him. But still, he’s closest to Virginia.

Montana: What can I say about Montana? Well, for one, America is the only one allowed to call her by her human name; everyone else has to call her Montana (her human name’s a secret for now; some of her own siblings don’t even know it). She has brunette hair and violet eyes (same shade as Canada’s). She’s kind of Canada-like in that she’s nice and polite to everyone, but she’s not afraid to stand her ground. She’s hardened due to the weather and terrain, but she loves being outdoors under the big sky. She’s a rancher, one of the few states that keeps the tradition alive. She likes to hunt and fish. Overall, she’s just hardworking and dedicated. I need to do more research on her history.

Washington: Washington’s kind of a nerd, especially when it comes to tech and business. He usually always has his nose stuck in a book and a coffee in hand. But that’s not to say that he’s not willing to get his hands dirty. If he needs to, he’s capable of and more than willing to do hard, physical labor. He and Oregon have this rivalry going on — it’s slightly reminiscent of the Ohio-Michigan rivalry (and those two egg it on; Ohio backs Oregon and Michigan backs Washington). I was actually told by someone from Oregon that their relationship is kind of Ohio-Michigan and it also has something to do with land. He’s also extremely professional. He has icy blue eyes and black hair. Again, I need to do more research on Washington.

Really, I still have a lot of research to do, which is why most of what I’ve given you is very non-specific. I really don’t want to offend anyone, and with some states, you get into some very sensitive topics that can easily and justifiably upset someone when they’re applied incorrectly.

Sorry for taking so long to answer. I meant to finish this earlier in the week, but I got distracted with school work. If you have any suggestions that you’d like to see, please feel free to let me know.

[kansascityhappenings]

These are the 10 best states for an early retirement

Photo Credit: Image Source/Alamy Stock Photo

Early retirement is something that most of us dream about, but few are able to achieve.

One reason is that the Social Security Administration — citing improved health and life expectancy for older populations — has been steadily raising the “full retirement age.”

Perhaps influenced by these changes, compared to previous generations, many of today’s non-retired Americans are anticipating later retirement ages for themselves — a trend that would correspond with a simultaneous decline in the number of people expecting to have enough money to live comfortably when retired.

Despite these trends, millennials seem to be obsessed with early retirement. While older Americans are pushing back their retirement projections, Americans under age 30 predict significantly younger retirement ages. At first glance, the rise of the sharing economy, opportunities to make passive income, and the appeal of a minimalist lifestyle make this seem feasible.

However, most millennials, compared to previous generations, are delaying major life events (including entering the labor force) and as a result have very little saved. A recent report by the National Institute on Retirement Security concluded that 66 percent of working millennials have nothing saved for retirement.

But for the lucky few who can make early retirement possible, achieving financial independence is only one part of the equation. The questions of where to retire and what to do in retirement are even more important for those expecting to spend larger portions of their life not constrained by a traditional job.

To help with these decisions, researchers at Haven Life, an online life insurance agency, identified the best states for an early retirement based on more than a dozen factors that fall into one of three broad categories: well-being, cost of living, and health care.

Here’s what Haven Life found:

Well-being

Well-being — the most important ranking category for active, early retirees — takes into consideration weather (states with more mild temperatures and lower precipitation are favored), safety, and the accessibility of arts, entertainment, and recreation.

States in the West score highest in these areas, whereas states in the South score lowest. Western states, especially California and Oregon, tend to have most of the population concentrated in large cities with easy access to recreational activities and cultural attractions.

Cost of Living

Cost of living is the second most important ranking category for early retirees, as they will need stretch their savings for a longer period of time than those who retire later.

This category measures each state’s overall tax burden and the cost of goods and services in each state. The overall tax burden includes individual income, property, general sales, and selective sales taxes, which is in part why the lowest-cost-of-living states are not just the states with no income tax (e.g. Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming).

The least expensive states are concentrated in the more rural South and Midwest, while the most expensive states include California, Hawaii, and five Northeast states.

Health Care

While still important, health care quality is generally less of a concern for early retirees than those who retire later in life. For this reason, health care quality contributed least to the overall score of all the ranking categories.

Health care factors in life expectancy and additional data from the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For each state, the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report looks at patient safety, effective treatment, access to care, diseases and conditions, and insurance among other factors.

States with the best health care are concentrated in the northern United States, while health care in the South is generally worse. A notable geographic outlier is Hawaii, which has the seventh best health care in the country.

The overall best states for retirement

Taking all of these factors into consideration, here are the overall best states for retirement:

Photo Credit: Andrew Zarivny / Alamy Stock Photo

10. Colorado

Well-being rank: 10

Cost of living rank: 37

Health care quality rank: 15

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Westminster, CO

Colorado is known for its location in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. With plenty of activities available in all months of the year, Colorado is a popular destination for those with time on their hands.

Although slightly more expensive than the average state (mainly due to the price of goods and services), Colorado is one of the top states for well-being and also boasts strong health care. Colorado ranks 12th in the nation for its access to arts, entertainment, and recreation. It also has the seventh-lowest annual precipitation of all states, allowing its residents to enjoy the outdoors for most of the year.

Westminster, a suburb of Denver, is the state’s most popular choice among retirees. Despite Colorado’s reputation for snowy winters, the weather in Denver and its surrounding suburbs is relatively mild. In fact, many of Denver’s golf courses are open year round.

Photo Credit: Sorin Colac / Alamy Stock Photo

9. Hawaii

Well-being rank: 6

Cost of living rank: 49

Health care quality rank: 7

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Wailuku, HI

Similar to Colorado, Hawaii is certainly on the expensive side. Although property taxes are low, the prices of goods and services in Hawaii are about 18 percent higher than the national average, and the state income tax burden is the second highest in the country.

But if cost isn’t a concern, there is little to complain about in Hawaii.

Situated in the middle of the Pacific, Hawaii is known for its natural beauty and stunning beaches. It offers warm temperatures year round, low violent crime, and terrific health care. Wailuku, a historic town located on the coast and at the base of the West Maui Mountains, has the greatest influx of retirees in the state. Its charming downtown has a truly local feel, featuring historic buildings, boutiques, theaters, restaurants, and more.

Photo Credit: Tim Brown / Alamy Stock Photo

8. California

Well-being rank: 2

Cost of living rank: 46

Health care quality rank: 20

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Palm Springs, CA

California’s thriving arts and entertainment scene, combined with its generally pleasant weather, have earned the state the distinction of being ranked second highest in the country for well-being.

However, the city’s high housing costs and prices for goods and services make it one of the most expensive states in the country. California is the largest state by population and the third largest by land area, offering its residents a diverse set of cities and regions to choose from.

Palm Springs, a desert resort city in Riverside County, appeals to retirees who enjoy warm weather, days by the pool, golf, and music.

Photo Credit: Sean Pavone / Alamy Stock Photo

7. New Hampshire

Well-being rank: 17

Cost of living rank: 26

Health care quality rank: 5

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Lebanon, NH

Known as the “Live Free or Die” state, New Hampshire has the lowest overall tax burden on this list, making it an appealing destination for those wishing to keep more of their hard-earned dollars. New Hampshire has the third-lowest sales tax burden, and the eighth-lowest income tax burden of any state, although its property taxes are notoriously high.

New Hampshire is famous for its mountains, which locals enjoy hiking, and its covered bridges, which enhance the natural beauty of the landscape. New Hampshire boasts some of the lowest crime rates of any state, and also offers some of the best health care. Lebanon, a popular city for retirees, is located on the Connecticut River in the heart of the New Hampshire Valley. It offers a unique combination of rural life and big-city culture.

Photo Credit: Robert Garrigus / Alamy Stock Photo

6. Wyoming

Well-being rank: 1

Cost of living rank: 30

Health care quality rank: 37

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Cheyenne, WY

Wyoming is the least populous state, and its capital of Cheyenne only has a population of 63,624.

Despite having so few people, the state is ranked fifth for its accessibility to arts, entertainment, and recreational activities. This, combined with its low crime rates, wide open spaces, and mild, sunny weather, make Wyoming the top-ranked state for well-being.

Wyoming is home to Yellowstone National Park, and is well-known for outdoor sports such as skiing and fishing.

Photo Credit: Witold Skrypczak / Alamy Stock Photo

5. Utah

Well-being rank: 13

Cost of living rank: 21

Health care quality rank: 17

City with the greatest influx of retirees: St. George, UT

Utah scores above average across all three categories, placing it high on this overall list.

Outdoor activities like skiing, snowboarding, stargazing, and hiking are popular pastimes with Utah residents of all ages. The Sundance Film Festival and an award-winning Shakespeare Festival also take place in Utah, as did the Winter Olympics in 2002.

St. George, the city in Utah with the greatest influx of retirees, is known for its championship golf courses, proximity to Zion National Park, and affordable home prices.

Photo Credit: Randall Runtsch / Alamy Stock Photo

4. North Dakota

Well-being rank: 11

Cost of living rank: 24

Health care quality rank: 3

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Grand Forks, ND

At first glance, North Dakota might seem like an unlikely choice for retirees, but the state offers many benefits, including terrific health care, low crime rates, and low income and property taxes. Additionally, despite its small population of 755,393, North Dakota is ranked ninth for access to entertainment and recreational activities.

Grand Forks is North Dakota’s third-largest city with a population of around 55,000, and is a top choice among retirees. Grand Forks offers its residents a vibrant arts scene, miles of recreational trails for walking and cycling, as well as a lively downtown.

Photo Credit: Gary Tognoni / Alamy Stock Photo

3. Montana

Well-being rank: 3

Cost of living rank: 10

Health care quality rank: 30

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Billings, MT

If you’re looking for elbow room, Montana is one of the least densely populated states in the U.S., with 6.8 people per square mile.

Montana is known for its rich wildlife, including large populations of elk, buffalo, grizzly bears, and trumpeter swans. Although the state is predominantly rural, it is also ranked surprisingly well for its accessibility of arts, entertainment, and recreational establishments.

The prices of goods and services in Montana are about six percent lower than the national average. Additionally, low sales tax rates in the state (the fourth lowest in the country) contribute to Montana being the state with the ninth-lowest overall tax burden.

Billings is the largest city in Montana, situated on the Yellowstone River. Known as the Gateway to Yellowstone National Park, Billings offers retirees stunning landscapes, world-class restaurants, and Montana’s only Walkable Brewery District.

Photo Credit: photo.eccles / Alamy Stock Photo

2. South Dakota

Well-being rank: 9

Cost of living rank: 2

Health care quality rank: 22

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Aberdeen, SD

Home to the Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore, South Dakota is a Midwestern state with fewer than one million people.

Native American influence is still strong in the state, with 9 percent of the population identifying as Native American (compared to 1.3 percent nationwide).

While the weather is prone to extremes, South Dakota is one of the safest states for crime and offers myriad entertainment and cultural activities to choose from. Additionally, South Dakota does not have a state income tax and its prices of goods and services are 12 percent below the national average, making South Dakota one of the least expensive states.

A popular destination for retirees in South Dakota is Aberdeen. Located 125 miles northeast of the state capital of Pierre, Aberdeen is a lively small city with numerous fairs and festivals, theaters, parks, other cultural activities to enjoy.

Photo Credit: Gregory Johnston / Alamy Stock Photo

1. Idaho

Well-being rank: 4

Cost of living rank: 7

Health care quality rank: 19

City with the greatest influx of retirees: Nampa, ID

Idaho is known for more than just potatoes. This midwestern state is home to lakes, hot springs, and more than four million acres of wilderness. Idaho also supplies the majority of the nation’s trout from its more than 100,000 miles of rivers. The overall cost of goods and service in Idaho is seven percent below the national average, but rents are over 30 percent lower. Nampa, the second most populous city in Idaho, is located just outside of the state capital of Boise and is receiving the greatest influx of retirees of any city in the state.

Methodology

To identify the best states for an early retirement, Haven Life created a composite score based on the following factors:

Well-being (50%): The well-being rank is based on: 1) weather, 2) accessibility of arts, entertainment, and recreation, and 3) crime rates.

Historical weather data was sourced from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. States with more mild temperatures and lower precipitation are favored. For accessibility of arts, entertainment, and recreation, the density of those types of businesses was calculated for each state; data is from the U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns Survey. Violent and property crime rates were sourced from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics database.

Cost of living (30%): The cost of living rank for each state is based on: 1) its overall tax burden, and 2) its relative price of goods and services.

Tax burdens for each state were calculated using income data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) State Personal Income, and tax revenue data from the U.S. Census Bureau State and Local Government Finances. The overall tax burden includes individual income, property, general sales, and selective sales taxes. Regional price differences are from the BEA Regional Price Parity (RPP) dataset, which factors in education, food, housing, rents, medical, recreation, apparel, and transportation, among other goods and services.

Health care quality (20%): The health care quality rank for each state factors in life expectancy and additional data from the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

In addition, for each state, the city with the greatest influx of retirees was identified using the U.S. Census Bureau 2016 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates.

Editor’s note: Haven Life Insurance Agency LLC (Haven Life) conducted this research for educational/informational purposes only. Haven Life is an online life insurance agency offering term life insurance issued by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. Haven Life does not provide tax, legal, investment, or housing/real estate  advice, and the information in the study should not be relied on as such. You should consult your own tax, legal, investment, and other advisors, as appropriate, before engaging in any transaction.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2018/09/05/the-10-best-states-for-an-early-retirement/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/these-are-the-10-best-states-for-an-early-retirement/

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San Antonio Is Home To A Selection Of Shopping Venues With A Large Assortment Of Shops And Stores

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from George Santiago espn949 http://espn949.com/san-antonio-is-home-to-a-selection-of-shopping-venues-with-a-large-assortment-of-shops-and-stores/

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper announced he is running for president, declaring in his announcement video that he “can bring people together to produce the progressive change Washington has failed to deliver.”

Since being laid off from his job as a geologist in 1986, Hickenlooper’s luck has only improved. He and three friends founded a craft brewery in Denver’s LoDo neighborhood, helping bring development to a now-thriving part of the city. In 2003, Hickenlooper used that success as a springboard to be elected mayor, and then won re-election in 2007 with 87 percent of the vote. He then steered Colorado through disasters, tragedy and a recession for two terms as governor, leaving office earlier this year with an enviable legacy and a solid approval rating to boot. Now, he’s hoping to channel that success into becoming president of the United States. But in a field of Democrats who are both better known and have more obvious constituencies, is this where Hickenlooper’s climb stops?

Hickenlooper’s campaign is basically starting from scratch. In early surveys of the Democratic field — which mostly reflect name recognition at this point — he is polling between 0 and 1 percent.1 Only 22 percent of Democratic respondents even have an opinion of him, according to an average of national favorability polls since the beginning of the year. And he’s not on the radar of many Democratic activists in early states, either.

What Hickenlooper does have going for him is that he may be more skilled than most at getting his name out there. He’s run some of the best political ads in recent memory, including endearing spots about parking meters and his humble wardrobe, which helped him stand out in a wide-open field (sound familiar?) during his first run for mayor. And later ads in which he went skydiving and took a shower — fully clothed — were nothing if not memorable. His quirky personality was his secret political weapon in Colorado, but it’s unclear how it’ll shake out on a national stage, where his demographics — older, white, male — may pigeonhole him as a retread.

But even Hickenlooper himself admits that his moderate image is likely to be a problem in a Democratic presidential primary. The party’s influential left wing will probably view him with suspicion over his opposition to anti-fracking efforts, sympathies with the oil and gas industry (which once employed him) and wishy-washy comments over one of his signature progressive achievements, a gun-control package passed in the wake of the Aurora theater shooting. (Hickenlooper’s reported flirtation with running for president on a “unity ticket” with Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich probably won’t help, either.)

Although his tenure as governor was marked by economic success and liberal wins on social issues, his style of getting things done was undeniably bipartisan (perhaps out of necessity, given that Republicans controlled one chamber of the legislature during six of his eight years in office). Indeed, the only time Hickenlooper’s popularity as governor faltered was when he swerved left in 2013, signing those gun-control bills and staying the execution of convicted murderer Nathan Dunlap. He pivoted back to the center for 2014 and became Colorado’s only statewide Democrat to survive that year’s Republican wave. As he was preparing to leave office in late 2018, his approval/disapproval spread stood at 49 percent to 30 percent, giving him a +18 PARG — Popularity Above Replacement Governor. That’s nerd-speak for “a very high approval rating in a politically divided state.” Clearly, Hickenlooper is a consensus-builder, but it’s hard to imagine his motto of “there’s no profit margin in making enemies” resonating with the current mood of the Democratic electorate.

As FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver has written, Hickenlooper follows in the tradition of other politicians from the American West — candidates who wear cowboy boots and stand amid the great outdoors in ads espousing a nonideological, anti-politician message. That sort of branding has obvious appeal in the Mountain West, but Hickenlooper will have to expand his support elsewhere to win the nomination. In the 2016 primaries, the mountain states2 accounted for just 7 percent of pledged Democratic delegates, a function of their small size and Republican lean. Not to mention that Democrats have never nominated a presidential or vice-presidential candidate from west of the Central time zone in their 191-year history as a party.

Even more troubling, it’s hard to point to a clear base for Hickenlooper — at least one big enough to propel him meaningfully in a national primary. Contrary to his folksy image, the former big-city mayor doesn’t have a great track record of appealing to rural areas. As governor, his administration’s renewable-energy and gun policies alienated some rural counties so much that they symbolically voted to secede from Colorado. And he doesn’t do very well in our five-corners formulation of thinking about the Democratic primary field either:

Perhaps his penchant for viral videos will make him a favorite among millennials; the craft beer lover and banjo player already has a touch of hipster cred. A smarter strategy might be leaning into being the “cannabis candidate.” As governor of the first state where marijuana sales became legal (in 2014), Hickenlooper oversaw the law’s implementation and has nurtured a thriving cannabis industry. But while he hasn’t been shy about touting the benefits of recreational pot, activists may not be willing to forget that he initially opposed legalization in 2012.

Hickenlooper’s campaign might also plausibly try to leverage his background in geology; science, technology, engineering and mathematics professionals are increasingly political engaged and even have their own PAC. But so far, science as a policy issue doesn’t seem to be resonating with voters. When we researched the win rates of various types of candidates in 2018 Democratic primary races, we found that candidates with a STEM background had won just 23 percent of their primaries to that point, compared with 33 percent of non-STEM professionals.

Perhaps the strongest card in Hickenlooper’s hand is his status as a former governor; historically, they have better track records than members of Congress at being nominated for and elected president. But that is no guarantee of future success, and Hickenlooper starts the campaign a clear underdog. Once again, the self-made man will have to lift himself up from nothing to prevail.