Checklist: How to Pick the Place That's Right for You
By Timothy Haas

Return to article 5 Tried and True Cities for Hispanics Photo Galleries of the Best Cities to Call Home

It's time for a change of scenery. You're ready to retire after years of hard work and sacrifice to fulfill the immigrant's dream of sending your children to college. Or perhaps the elderly mother you're caring for needs sophisticated medical help your current location can't provide. Then again, maybe you and your spouse just want to enrich your 9-to-5 lives with a move to a vibrant Hispanic community. Whatever your motivation, this resource-filled checklist will help you make the match.

DOLLARS AND CENTS

1. Employment: Bilingual managers and professionals are increasingly coveted in the work force. If you're looking to keep a hand in your field or even embark on a second career, this targeted job search board can lead you to new opportunities throughout the country.

2. Housing: The National Association of Home Builders publishes a spreadsheet that shows the relative affordability of houses (Microsoft Excel file) in 200 areas around the country. Once you've picked a few possibilities, punch them into Real Estate Español for up-to-the-minute offerings in your price range. Or, if you prefer, find a bilingual agent to work with. Then check appreciation trends to see if you're buying into an overheated-or underperforming-market.

3. Local taxes: You've found a steal of a house, but it may not be such a bargain if high taxes are going to eat into your retirement income. Connect to each state's taxation department to get details on statewide sales and income levies and get either contact information or, in some cases, complete rate charts for every municipality in the state.

4. Government services: Whether the taxes are high or low, you might as well find out what you're getting in return. The U.S. government's official Internet portal provides extensive links for federal, state, and local agencies and departments, including Spanish-language state websites.

YOUR NEW NEIGHBORS

5. Demographics: Excited by the idea of a fast-growing multicultural suburb? Trying to identify a fertile spot to sow your 100-acre organic chili farm? The Census Bureau's QuickFacts site gives you the latest population, income, and business information for every U.S. county. If you'd like to discover the actual number of Hispanic neighbors you'll have in a particular area, the bureau's American Community Survey lets you dig deeper into more localized demographic information.

6. Sense of community: Read all the tourist brochures and chamber of commerce ads you want-nothing beats the local paper for evaluating a region's spirit. Pull up this lengthy list of local newspapers to see what's making headlines in your possible destination towns. Cities large enough to have their own Spanish-language newspapers are certainly worth a look.

7. Safety: The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program releases an annual tally of violent and property crimes for nearly every jurisdiction in the country, from New York and Miami down to Paw Paw, West Virginia (population 522-and it looks pretty safe, with no reported crime in 2001).

BODY, MIND, AND SOUL

8. Health care: Availability of care isn't an issue near major cities, but coverage can be spotty in rural areas. The American Medical Association will help you to locate doctors in various specialties, and you can also search for chiropractors nationwide. If a member of your family is managing a chronic illness, moving near a specialty hospital can make a real difference in quality of life.

9. High school confidential: If you still have kids at home, ensuring a quality education for them may be a big part of your decision. The U.S. Department of Education lets you review stats such as student-teacher ratio and spending per pupil for every public high school in the country, and provides contact information that you can use to investigate ESL and bilingual education offerings. Guidebook publisher Peterson's offers a similar database of private schools.

10. Continuing education opportunities: Then again, why should the kids be the only recipients of quality education? Retirement is a prime time to explore new interests or even pursue another degree. Open your mind to the possibilities, searchable by location or area of interest. To help tailor your search, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities lists more than 180 institutions with significant Hispanic enrollment (at least 25 percent of the student body) and nearly 100 with some Hispanic enrollment (10 percent or more). Also worth a look is this list of top 25 colleges for Hispanics.

11. Libraries: It's hard to think of a more reliable guide to a community's intellectual vitality than the availability of books. This listing of more than 200 public libraries across the country with Spanish-language resources is a useful companion to this annual ranking of libraries by staffing levels, collection size, and funding. Also, in some areas libraries are a major provider of language and citizenship classes, as well as a gateway to local government services.

12. Religion and spirituality: Joining a house of worship can be a great way of introducing yourself to a new community. The large percentage of Hispanics who are Catholic can easily find local dioceses, some of which have Spanish-language information on their sites, as well as times for bilingual and Spanish masses. Beliefnet provides links to worship locators for other major Christian denominations, Judaism, Islam, and everything else from Buddhism to earth-based religions.

CAN YOU GET THERE FROM HERE?

13. Local transportation: You can't wait to leave the big city behind, but the thought of using the car for every single trip is giving you pause. Fear not-public transit encompasses more than subways and commuter trains. Get links to local light-rail lines, bus companies, shuttles, and ferries, sorted by state. Many local systems include Spanish-language information on their sites.

14. National/international transportation: Many people use their retirement years to do all the traveling they weren't able to afford before. If you're yearning to settle far from the city but know you'll need frequent trips to satisfy your wandering soul, the FAA's interactive map of major U.S. airports (with links to maps of smaller regional airports) can help you find an accessible middle ground. Of course, for some people the rails (PDF) are the only way to roll. And, well, Greyhound goes just about everywhere (PDF).

OUT AND ABOUT

15. Culture and entertainment: Sure, it's easy finding chain movie theaters and Blockbuster video stores, but what if you prefer independent art theaters, symphony orchestras, dance companies, museums, or community theater? And how about Spanish-language radio and TV? Maybe it's not so hard after all.

16. Recreation: Here's the basic equation of the post-work world: free time = golf. Well, OK, maybe not for everyone. Cyclists, inline skaters, and walking enthusiasts might like a new home along the growing network of multi-use trails. Swimmers, boaters, and hikers might find state parks and national parks to be congenial neighbors. Of course, if you think flagging down the hot dog guy constitutes exercise, you can set up house near one of the more family-friendly branches of the Church of Baseball.

17. Weather: Let it snow, let it snow, let it . is it ever going to stop snowing? Find out what you're in for over the course of a typical year by entering the names or ZIP codes of towns on your shortlist at The Weather Channel and clicking on "Averages & Records."

18. Eating out: You know that no matter where you move, you're going to be able to find a classic roadside restaurant and, if you're in a beach town, a seafood place. But what about excellent Latin cuisine or a vegetarian meal? If it's natural or nothing on your table, these listings will help keep your plates full. And organic or not, farmers' markets allow you to buy locally wherever you are.

19. Cell phone coverage: Connectivity freaks, beware-there are great swaths of the U.S. in which the call of the whippoorwill is more common than the jangle of a Nokia. (Heck, there's a big chunk of central New Jersey that doesn't have cell service.) Dial up coverage information from Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

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