Tucson and Retirement

Until recently, Tucson had been known primarily as a health resort and winter vacation spa. But several significant factors have combined to slowly but surely modify that image. Today Tucson is a "year-round city" of some 300,000 permanent residents. And although health seekers and vacationers are still important to its economy, it is having increased numbers of retired persons. Several large communities have been built in and near Tucson for the exclusive use of retired people. Operators of such places claim that the separate retirement community has several advantages appealing to a large percentage of the growing American retired population.

For one thing, residents of the separate community can do much to control their own tax assessments. Often they avoid establishment of schools unnecessary in a community where children are not considered as residents. For another, mass production of apartments and homes for the specific use of persons on fixed incomes allows savings in construction costs that can be passed along to the customer in the form of reasonable purchase prices, inexpensive mortgages, and low rental fees. In addition, many retired persons have common interests such as golf, flower culture, handiwork, photography, and planned excursions. These interests are often enhanced by group participation. Most retirement communities in the Tucson area have extensive golf courses, gardens, hobby shops, and expanded areas.

The growth of retirement living in the Tucson area is especially apparent in an overwhelming number of trailer courts and mobile home sites. The Tucson telephone directory lists 123 such facilities. While all are not devoted exclusively to retired people, it is a fact that trailers are most often occupied by retirees, and the mobile home population of Tucson is largely composed of that group.

There was a time when "trailer towns" were not always exemplary places in which to live. Dramatic changes have taken place in recent years especially in Tucson. Some of the most beautiful landscapes in the city grace the mobile home areas. Several of the large, newer courts look like country clubs, and indeed are operated along club principles. Many are so large and attractive as to unquestionably constitute the finest facility in the immediate vicinity. Some mobile homes are so handsome that they compare favorably with the finer permanent homes in the same region. A number of courts have beautiful community facilities including swimming pools, hobby shops, and stores. They are completely self-contained villages designed for the mobile home owner, and often they cater particularly to the retired citizen. Many such places rent space to the mobile home owner. Others sell land especially designed for occupancy by the trailers. Some operate to capacity the year around. Others limit their facilities to use by the winter visitor.

But the retired population of Tucson is not confined to retirement communities and mobile home sites. There are thousands of private homes in the city where retired people live just like other. Those residents throughout the year. In almost any block of the constantly expanding city can be found at least one person or couple who has completed a lifetime of service and now enjoys the "twilight years" in the sunshine city.

What has made Tucson the target of so many retired people? Many reasons are responsible, but some influence of all has been sunshine. It was responsible for Tucson's popularity as a health and winter resort area. And, basically, it has been responsible for the fantastic growth that in fourteen years has changed Tucson from a sleepy town of 40,000 people to a sprawling metropolis of 300,000. That growth in population then influenced the retirement pattern. As new families moved to Tucson, soon-to-retire relatives in other parts of the nation were encouraged to consider The Old Pueblo as a future home.

For the resident of a state other than Arizona, Tucson offers relatively inexpensive housing. The man who has lived most of his working life in, say, Chicago or Detroit usually finds that he can sell his midwestern home for cash, buy another perhaps smaller but nevertheless attractive and practical home in Tucson, pay cash for the latter, and still place a substantial amount of his midwestern equity in the local bank. By so doing, such a man or couple can live in the climate preferred, occupy a comfortable home or apartment in which investment value is retained, and enjoy the knowledge that fixed income is not subject to lease payments, and that such income is strengthened by a cash reserve.

Tucson's importance as a military training site is another factor that has encouraged a retirement population. Many former soldiers who were stationed at huge Davis-Monthan Air Force Base or at nearby Fort Huachuca are returning to Tucson to spend retirement years. Because many of the latter group retire at a comparatively young age, Tucson's work force contains a significant number of service employees who draw military pensions as well as paychecks. Tucson's retirement population is not all the result of migration. There is a local condition that is influencing the situation. Civil Service employees, most of whom have good retirement plans, have increased at an amazing rate in Arizona during the past fifteen years. The number of federal employees has doubled in that time. Residents employed by state and local governments have almost tripled their ranks. The majority of these people remain in Arizona upon retirement. And a certain and gradually increasing number of them are retiring every day.

Will Tucson continue to be a popular retirement center? Undoubtedly! One Tucson retirement community developer has invested one hundred million dollars in what seems destined to become the largest community of its kind in the West if not in the United States. Other areas of the nation which for years had a monopoly on the retirement business notably California and Florida have had or fallen victim to unfavorable conditions which seem to have adversely affected their appeal. Hurricanes, smog, traffic tangles, car burdens, mosquitoes all have had an effect. To date none of these negative aspects exists in Tucson to any appreciable degree.