The Best and Worst US Cities to Retire in

— -- intro: Sunshine and low taxes may be selling points when choosing a city to retire in -- but only one city in Florida, which conspicuously boasts of both factors, made the cut in a new list of best cities to retire.

It turns out the Phoenix metropolitan area, not Tampa or Boca Raton, is the best city to retire in, according to Bankrate.com. The "Grand Canyon State" has three metro areas on the list this year.

The worst place to retire, according to the personal finance website, is New York City. The five worst places for retirement are New York City, Little Rock, Arkansas; New Haven, Connecticut; Buffalo, New York; and Newark, New Jersey.

While New York ranked first in walkability, its high cost and taxes were negatives.

Bankrate.com ranked 172 American cities based on weather, cost of living, crime rate, health care quality, taxes and "walkability." The rankings also considered "senior well-being," a measurement from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index that tries to capture satisfaction of surroundings from residents 65 and older.

The top 10 best places for retirement are:

quicklist:title: Phoenix metro area (including Mesa and Scottsdale)text:

quicklist:title: Arlington/Alexandria, Va.text:

quicklist:title: Prescott, Ariz.text:

quicklist:title: Tucson, Ariz.text:

quicklist:title: Des Moines, Iowatext:

quicklist:title: Denver (including Aurora)text:

quicklist:title: Austin (including Round Rock)text:

quicklist:title: Cape Coral (including Ft. Myers)text:

quicklist:title: Colorado Springs, Colo.text:

quicklist:title: Franklin, Tenn.text:

Some may be surprised at some of the cities in the list.

"I think it’s always great to see cities in fly-over states do so well," said Chris Kahn, Bankrate, research and statistics editor, pointing to Franklin, Tennessee, and Des Moines, Iowa. "A lot of people think of the Sun Belt or the beach when they think of retirement. But there are a lot of great spots further north."

Kahn said he was surprised more cities from Florida did not make the list.

"In general, Florida cities dropped in our ranking due to high costs of living, a below-average health care system and in some cases high crime rates," he said.