Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 17, 1995                   TAG: 9501170158
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

VIRGINIA IS FOR ... RETIREES, STUDY SHOWS

North Carolina's star continued to rise, to fifth on the list of most popular states for retirees. Virginia and Georgia climbed into the top 10 for the first time in 1990, reports Charles F. Longino, a professor at Wake Forest University and Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Most Americans stay put when they retire, Longino observed, with 84 percent of people ages 55 and older saying they want to remain in their current homes.

But those who do relocate have become the focus of intense marketing campaigns, creating a ``mailbox economy'' in retirement communities that receive a monthly infusion of cash from pensions, investments and Social Security.

Becoming a retirement center can be a real economic boon for a state, he said, and the process tends to feed on itself. Once an area becomes known as a retirement center, services move in and it becomes more attractive to retirees - until it becomes too crowded or too old.

``California has really become, in the last decade, more of a sending state than a receiving state,'' Longino said. ``The net balance has shifted.''

Florida is a different story, he said. The drop-off there is more recent and smaller.

``I suspect what is going on is that North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and parts of Virginia are beginning to form a barrier between the Northeast and Florida,'' Longino said.

The new rankings are Arizona, third; Texas, fourth; North Carolina, fifth; Pennsylvania, sixth; New Jersey, seventh; Washington state, eighth. Virginia and Georgia joined the list at ninth and 10th spots, replacing Illinois and New York.