[Rain Man]

Okay, I'll start posting the ranking of my 86 cites that are potential retirement destinations. As background, I looked at housing costs, cost of living, taxes, various climate issues, political leanings, population size, and my subjective scoring of the quality of housing choices available in the $400,000 to $500,000 price range.

Scoring is based on my family's preferences, which are:

1. Having to work fewer years before retirement is a plus.
2. We want lower humidity, but it doesn't help if it's lower than Denver's. It just hurts if it's higher.
3. We want an average amount of rain, not too much and not too little.
4. We want as little snow as possible (my wife's preference in particular)
5. We'd rather live in a place that is in the middle politically, but leaning left is better than leaning right. (Put on your dang masks if you want me to move there.)
6. We're looking at single-story homes whenever possible, since we'll plan to age in the home.
7. We want a place that has January lows of around 45 and July highs of 75. The further from that, the more points are deducted.
8. Housing quality scores are based on the size of home we can afford (up to an ideal size but not necessarily bigger), as well as my subjective view of how attractive the housing stock is.
9. I'd rather live in a larger city, primarily because we'll need more health care as we age, and we also like having more choice among restaurants, culture, parks, etc. However, anything about 200,000 is generally the same, so no bonus for being bigger beyond that.
10. The 86 cities are mostly places that I think would be interesting, but I also generally tried to get a city in most western states. I added a few cities in other regions that look interesting, or where I've heard the tax situation is friendly to retired people.