Toledo Blade. June 15, 2022.
Editorial: Toledo is Ohio’s best place to retire
The Toledo region is a great place to live. It’s an even better place to retire.
That truth gained some well-deserved recognition in a national report. It’s time to spread the word.
U.S. News & World Report recently ranked the 150 largest metro areas in the United States as a place to retire, and Toledo is the top spot in Ohio.
That ranking covers the multicounty Toledo metropolitan area, which includes surrounding communities.
The magazine grades Toledo health care, as measured by quality and quantity of nearby hospitals and clinics, as the best in Ohio.
Excellent values in housing drive the other major Toledo advantage: affordability.
A low birthrate and increased lifespans make the retiree population the fastest growing demographic category in America.
This means Toledo has what a large number of people need, a high-quality lifestyle at moderate cost.
For those of us living and working here now, it’s good news to find a comprehensive study showing the advantages of the Toledo region are even more pronounced upon retirement. For the many community organizations with connections to former residents who’ve left the area for careers elsewhere, this news offers a perfect opportunity to recruit potential retirees with ancestral, educational, or professional ties to Toledo.
That is a vast group of people.
In the age of email and text messages, communication with these potential Toledo retirees is nearly free.
Economic analysis of typical metro spending patterns by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows retirees drive about 16 percent of economic activity, with household spending of more than $48,000 annually.
An effort to spread the word of Toledo’s best place to retire in Ohio status could bring new residents, whose presence adds value to all the assets, both public and private, across the entire metropolitan region.
Even more importantly, the message can convince the people already here that staying here for retirement is the wise choice.
