U.S. News & World Report released its list today of its picks for the Top Ten Best Places to Retire. May I have a drum roll please…..Eden Prairie made the list! Eden Prairie is one of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Places to Retire. I read the article this morning. It makes a pretty good case for Eden Prairie as a place to move to for anyone thinking of retiring.
The rapid growth of Eden Prairie in the 1980s and 1990s was fueled by the rapid construction of single family homes. For much of the past twenty years, the city has been a community of young families focused intently on parks, schools and quality of life issues. To be honest, I have never given much thought to marketing Eden Prairie as a retirement community, but I’m not against it either. In fact, it’s a good thing for the community’s demographics to fill out a bit on the senior end of the population continuum. Seniors often provide a cadre of available volunteers and part time workers that fulfill important needs in the community: serving as election judges for the city elections; serving as classroom volunteers for the schools; providing leadership in local non-profits; welcoming shoppers at Wal-Mart; or serving lunch in the church basement on a Wednesday morning funeral. A healthy available retiree population is a valuable asset to any community. That population has always been in Eden Prairie, but its population is starting to gain, on a relative basis, on the younger demographics that moved here in the ’80s and ’90s.
So I’m not quite ready to declare Eden Prairie as a Retirement Community, but pleased to see the recognition for our City on the U.S. News & World Report list. To everyone in the community who played a part in earning this recognition – Well Done!
