A new study lists Traverse City as one of the ten best places to retire in the state of Michigan. Coming in at #3, it trails only Farmington and Grosse Pointe among Michigan cities. Traverse City and Petoskey (#7) were the only cities north of Grand Blanc to make the list; all the others were in southeastern Michigan. The list was created by Smart Asset, a financial tech company which provides free, personalized tools to enable users to “make smart personal finance decisions around homebuying, retirement, taxes and more.”

SmartAsset gathered data on three separate regional factors that affect the quality of life for retirees. First was state and local tax rates, considering both income and sales tax; those were the same for all the cities. Second was the number of doctors’ offices, recreation centers and retirement centers per thousand residents in each area. The third factor was the number of seniors in each area as a percentage of the total population. It ranked each county and city on these three factors weighted equally. So while Traverse City ranked below Rochester (ranked #4) in the number of doctors’ offices per 1,000 people, 13.6 to 20.4, it outstripped it in the number of rec centers and retirement centers.