taken from Yahoo! today:
=======================================

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer 37 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Skyrocketing housing prices are driving people from San Francisco, Boston and other big cities. Warm weather and more affordable living are behind the rapid growth in midsize cities in Florida, Arizona, Nevada and California.

Census Bureau figures being released Thursday show no letup in the migration to the South and West, which are home to all 10 of the fastest-growing cities with at least 100,000 people.
The Phoenix suburb of Gilbert, Ariz., topped the list. The city grew by more than 46,000 people, or 42 percent, to just over 156,000 residents in a little over four years.

Next on the list ranked by percentage gain was Miramar, Fla., followed by North Las Vegas, Nev.; Port St. Lucie, Fla.; and Roseville, Calif. Rounding out the top 10 were Henderson, Nev.; Chandler, Ariz.; Cape Coral, Fla.; and Rancho Cucamonga and Irvine, both in California.
San Francisco and Boston found themselves among the cities losing the most people between April 2000 and July 2004. Boston, for example, shed more than 19,000 people, or 3.4 percent of its population. San Francisco lost 32,000, or 4.2 percent.

"People like to live in smaller places and a lot of it's propelled by the sharp spike in housing costs in the inner and more attractive cities," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "People want to get as much housing as they can for their dollars."
The median price for a single-family home in Gilbert is around $220,000, compared with more than $387,000 in Boston and $641,000 in San Francisco.

Peter Ragone, a spokesman for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, said the city recognizes the problem and has begun a number of affordable housing initiatives, such as redevelopment projects aimed at producing more moderately priced homes.

Greg Svelund, city spokesman in Gilbert, said many new residents are coming from higher-priced communities in California. Gilbert adds an estimated 1,000 residents a month, he said.
Miramar, the second-fastest growing city, has undergone a revitalization project in the past decade, Mayor Lori Moseley said. The newest addition to the city south of Fort Lauderdale is the 54-acre Town Center, which houses government offices. Plans call for a cultural arts center that will include an 800-seat auditorium, as well as retail stores and restaurants.

"We want to be a city that you can live, work, play and prosper in," Moseley said.

Another Florida city, Port St. Lucie, experienced the largest population growth for a one-year period beginning in July 2003. It added nearly 13,000 people — a 12 percent jump.

Older, industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest continued to lose residents. Among them were Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Cleveland.

"In those places, they've been on a steady slide since the 1950s. And most of them have not had a single up-decade since the 1940s," said Robert Lang, demographer and director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, Va.

Lang said there is not one particular reason, such as the departure of manufacturing jobs, to explain the losses. But none of the cities attracts new residents through immigration, he said.
In San Francisco and Boston, which had populations booms in the 1990s, Lang said the high-tech bust was a major factor in the declines since 2000.

"This is not shaping up to be a good decade for older cities in the United States in contrast to the 90s," said Lang. "This performance probably doesn't rival the 70s, which stand out as the worst decade, but looks to be underperforming even the 80s."
___
On the Net:
Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov

Something I found in Fortune Magazine's July 11, 2005 edition, online:

RETIREMENT GUIDE 2005Psych Yourself to SaveBy Julia Boorstin

You can blame many factors for our dismal savings rate—less than 1% of our disposable household income—but one is simple American optimism. Even if we don’t save enough for retirement right now, we tell ourselves, everything will work out in the end. Behavioral economists say that understanding savings-hindering psychological tendencies like this can help us overcome them. Here are four such blind spots—and how to get around them.

· PROBLEM: If you see money in your checking account, you spend it.
· SOLUTION: Pay yourself first.

Automatic savings plans, especially those that deduct money directly from your paycheck and put it into a 401(k) plan, mutual fund, or savings account, are a godsend: The money is whisked away into a kitty where you don’t see it and are far less likely to touch it. Consider a client of Los Angeles financial planner Jim Gottfurcht, a doctor in his 50s who had very little set aside for retirement because he regularly outspent his $200,000 salary. Gottfurcht started him off at a 5% automatic deduction last year; now it’s up to 10%. "After a bit of anxiety for the first few months," says Gottfurcht, "he quickly found he didn’t miss that extra money at all."

· PROBLEM: You spend "windfall" money whenever you get it.
· SOLUTION: Treat all money the same.

We are inclined to spend money we weren’t expecting—a gift, a bonus, a tax refund—more freely than we would regular income. That’s because we tend to create different mental categories for different kinds of money, says Gary Belsky, author of Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes—and How to Correct Them. But when you’re withdrawing it as a retiree, all money is the same. So don’t blow a holiday bonus on anything you wouldn’t buy otherwise. Sound overly restrictive? Then tell yourself you’ll put the "found money" into a savings account for just one month and consider how to spend it later. By the time the month is up, says Belsky, the dough will likely feel more like savings than a windfall, and you’ll be less likely to use it on a shopping spree.

· PROBLEM: You throw good money after bad.
· SOLUTION: Don’t let past decisions dictate future ones.

Financial planner Elaine Scoggins tells of a pair of clients in their mid-60s who bought a $250,000 yacht, which they were planning to use in retirement to cruise between Florida and the Caribbean. On their first trip the boat broke down, and the couple subsequently spent thousands on repairs, insurance, and the like. "It took them three years to get tired of the bottomless pit and sell it," Scoggins says. "It was hard for them to admit that the boat wasn’t the best idea." Past decisions can’t be undone; make future spending and saving decisions based on what you know now.

· PROBLEM: Saving money feels like depriving yourself.
· SOLUTION: Visualize something concrete that your savings will buy.

Saving for retirement isn’t a loss, of course; it’s a future gain. But the future can seem mighty nebulous, and that flat-screen TV is on sale now. The secret to successful saving is to focus like a laser on the better things your savings will buy in the future. Tom and Sue, a Pittsburgh couple in their early 50s, were making plenty of money but weren’t saving enough for retirement. Their financial planner, Diane Pearson, helped them visualize something they craved in retirement: building and decorating their dream house. "With that concrete goal it was easy for them to increase their savings by $500 and then $1,000 a month," says Pearson.

I'm approaching 40 and some would say I'm on the verge of a mid-life crisis. I got a nice family with 3 wonderful kids. Got a house and 2 cars, a consulting job, and a small business that I have started recently. My family is also active in the Catholic service --- oh, and yes, we pray a lot!

Guess what. Am I contented? Happy? Actually, I'm scared.

Living in a 3rd world country may seem contributory to my fears but I would also like to hear from guys from the 2nd and 1st world countries. Are our fears and feelings the same?

Let me go a bit further.

I've lived in the Philippines pratically my whole life. Some trips to the U.S., Singapore, London, Hong Kong, and Mexico have been educational for me and my family. Like in similarly economically and politically tumultous nations, our situation has always been a roller-coaster ride.

Our country would have been a tiger economy by 2000 but the Asian crisis left our economy in tatters by 1998. Two presidents later, I can't seem to find a middle class anymore. It's either you have money or you don't.

What I'm scared about most is the fact that the anarchy that was in 2002 (the aftermath of a mass protest in our famous EDSA 3) could shift from our Malacañang Palace (the seat of Philippine Governance) to our so-called exclusive enclaves. Who's going to stop another mass rampage, the security guards at the village gates? I don't think so. They themselves belong to the same poor masses. And yes, they've got guns. Scary, huh?

Well, I am optimistic that things will get better but I feel I've been scratching the bottom of the opportunity bubble for so long that I'm running out of nails to scratch with. I'm tired --- and so is the business community.

Maybe that's why I dream of retiring happy these days. Retiring abroad has been an option. Though working or migrating abroad for the next 20 years then retiring in the Philippines is a better option.

Don't get me wrong. The Philippines has a lot to offer to foreign retirees. We've got the best beaches and coral reefs in the world. The exchange rate is US$ 1.00 to Php 55.00 which means you get more value or your American Dollar here. Peace and order in the provinces is tops and the prices of housing and medical services is really low. The Filipinos by nature are hospitable, very skilled and creative and we speak fluent English. Now, that's a bonus for retirees.

No, I'm not after job security. That's been obliterated a long time ago. But where are the good jobs? Create a small business and the local government will charge you an arm and a leg before you get those permits. And there's the problem of finding people who can afford your goods or services. (People in a bad economy go for necessities, you know). So where's the joy in having you're own little shop?

Some mid-life crisis, huh? So, tell me, how can I retire a happy man? And where's my next destination before I hit 40?

Vamos!