Money Magazine: Best places to retire 2006: Battle Creek, MI snapshot

Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market trading After-hours trading Winners/losers/actives Bonds Currencies Commodities Money Magazine Retirement Mutual Funds Taxes Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Loan Center Best Places to Live Calculators Mortgage Rates Personal tech Big Tech blog Techland blog Sectors and stocks Fortune 500 techs Tech Talk 100 best places to launch Ultimate resource guide Small biz makeovers FSB 100 Ask & Answer Fortune 500 Technology Investing Management Rankings Main Create portfolio Edit portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts

Winners

Battle Creek, MI Population: 53,409 Population, age 50+: 16,013 Population growth, age 50+: 8.50%
Taxes
	City stats
State income tax rate (highest bracket)	3.90%^*
State income tax rate (lowest bracket)	3.90%^*
Retirement tax break from state?	Yes
State property taxes	Average
Sales tax	6.00%
State gas tax (cents per gallon)	19.0
Housing
	City stats
Median home price	$84,150
Home price gain (2004-2005)	0.20%
Financial
	City stats
Median household income (per year)	$38,554
Auto insurance premiums (Average for the state)	$2,575
Quality of life
	City stats
Air quality index (% of days AQI ranked as good)	n/a
Personal crime risk (100 is nat'l average; lower is better)	260
Property crime risk (100 is nat'l average; lower is better)	199
Personal crime incidents (per 100,000)	1,033
Property crime incidents (per 100,000)	5,820
Leisure and culture
	City stats
Movie theaters (within 15 miles)	7
Restaurants (within 15 miles)	363
Bars (within 15 miles)	25
Public golf courses (within 30 miles)	55
Libraries (within 15 miles)	9
Museums (accredited by AAM within 30 miles)	2
Colleges, universities and professional schools	0
Ski resorts (within 100 miles)	9
Weather
	City stats
Annual precipitation (inches)	35.15
Clear days	64
High temp in July ° F	82.5°
Low temp in Jan ° F	15.3°
Health***
	City stats
Hospitals (within 30 miles)	41
Doctors' offices	108
Body mass index (avg. for residents)	27
Cancer mortality (per 100,000, age-adjusted)	214.3
Cardiac mortality (per 100,000)	323.1
Meet the neighbors
	City stats
Median age	34.4
Completed at least some college (% of residents)	50.0%
Married	45.2%
Divorced	14.5%

*Income tax notes:
15 states have statutory provision for automatic adjustment of tax brackets, personal exemption or standard deductions to the rate of inflation. Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska and Ohio indexes the personal exemption amounts only.
***County data

Data: OnBoard, FORTUNE. Details

Nearby places

See city stats

Feedback on the Best Places to Live list?
E-mail the editors

Information powered by OnBoard LLC
Some data may be provided courtesy of its partners.

Additional data and consulting services provided by Bert Sperling's bestplaces.net.

Affordable homes
	Median home sale price 2005
Reading, PA	$42,850
Buffalo, NY	$45,000
Niagara Falls, NY	$47,000
See the rest

Most golf played
	Golf activity index (100=national avg., 200=twice national avg.)
Coconut Creek, FL	141
Palm Harbor, FL	139
Palm Desert, CA	134
See the rest

Tennis
	Tennis activity index (100=national avg., 200=twice national avg.)
Bethesda, MD	163
Greenwich, CT	161
Davis, CA	161
See the rest

Most country club members
	Percentage of households
Palm Desert, CA	2.0
Bethesda, MD	2.0
Greenwich, CT	1.8
See the rest

Most educated
	% residents with graduate degree
Arlington, VA	35.7
Davis, CA	34.6
Brookline, MA	32.5
See the rest

Oldest
	Median age
Tamarac, FL	49.69
Lake Havasu City, AZ	46.71
St. Simons Island, GA	46.66
See the rest

Special Offer:

Live Quotes automatically refresh, but individual equities are delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Market indexes are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET.
* : Time reflects local markets trading time. † - Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Disclaimer

Copyright © 2008 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. All Times are ET.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Hemscott.
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.