8 Best Places to Live in the Southern United States

Four of the eight towns below sit in states with no state income tax (Florida, Tennessee) or with one of the more retiree-friendly tax codes in the country (South Carolina). Two are college towns built around major universities (Oxford and Charlottesville). One is a 130-year-old single-tax utopian colony that still operates the experiment today. The eight do not have much else in common beyond the geography. What they share is a level of specific local infrastructure that holds residents through retirement and beyond.

Oxford, Mississippi

William Faulkner bought Rowan Oak in 1930 and lived in the antebellum Greek Revival house south of Oxford's Square until his death in 1962. He wrote most of the Yoknapatawpha novels there, using Oxford as the model for his fictional county. The house operates as a museum under the University of Mississippi. John Grisham later kept a home in Oxford for years. The town today runs about 28,000 residents, with a relatively low crime rate and the everyday infrastructure of a flagship state-university town. The Square at the center of downtown holds Square Books (one of the most important independent bookstores in the South), City Grocery, and a row of art galleries within easy walking distance.

Fairhope, Alabama

A group of single-tax economists from Iowa founded Fairhope in 1894 as a utopian colony based on the theories of Henry George. The Fairhope Single Tax Corporation still leases land to about 1,800 households around town as a continuation of that 1894 experiment, which makes Fairhope the longest continuously operating Georgist community in the United States. The town sits on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, with the Fairhope Municipal Pier extending out over the water as the unofficial town square (open 24 hours and used heavily at sunset). The Fairhope Museum of History on Section Street covers the founding through the present. Sunset Pointe at Fly Creek Marina is the long-running local seafood option with bay views.

Naples, Florida

Naples runs as a snowbird community. Peak season runs October through April. The population swells, the restaurants book out, and the traffic on Tamiami Trail thickens. Once May arrives, the seasonal residents head back north and the year-round population (about 19,000) gets the city back to itself. The Naples Pier, first built in 1888, has been rebuilt several times after hurricanes (most recently after Hurricane Ian in 2022). Fifth Avenue South lines up palm-shaded restaurants and high-end shops, with Naples Art Association galleries at the inland end. Florida charges no state income tax, which is the tax-math anchor for a retirement move here.

Wake Forest, North Carolina

Wake Forest the town and Wake Forest the university have not been the same place since 1956, when the university packed up and moved 100 miles west to Winston-Salem. The original campus on North Main Street now houses Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, with the Wake Forest Historical Museum preserving the older institutional history. The town itself has grown past 50,000 over the past decade, fed by the Research Triangle 20 miles south. The Wake Forest Renaissance Centre on Brooks Street runs theater, dance, and art programs year-round. The Six Sundays in Spring concert series at E. Carroll Joyner Park anchors the warmer-weather calendar. Crime rates run below the national average.

Americus, Georgia

Charles Lindbergh made his first solo flight at Souther Field outside Americus in May 1923, in a war-surplus Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" he had bought a week earlier for $500. A Georgia Historical Society marker at the entrance to what is now Jimmy Carter Regional Airport tells the story. The town itself sits in southwest Georgia with a cost of living well below the state average and a downtown listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Rylander Theatre on Forsyth Street, restored to its 1921 grandeur, runs concerts and a full theater season. The public schools run student-to-teacher ratios well below the national average, and property taxes here are unusually low.

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Charles Fraser planned the Sea Pines development on the southern end of Hilton Head Island beginning in 1956 and put up restrictive building covenants designed to keep the island's beachfront low-rise. The Harbour Town Lighthouse at the marina, built in 1970 as a marketing landmark for Sea Pines (it has never been a working navigational aid), is the lasting visual of that effort. The Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn preserves Lowcountry heritage buildings across 68 acres. Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge sits on a causeway bridge from the island with about 4,000 acres of marsh and maritime forest. South Carolina exempts Social Security from state income tax entirely. The state also grants a retirement-income deduction of up to $10,000 for residents 65 and over.

Charlottesville, Virginia

Thomas Jefferson designed and founded the University of Virginia in 1819 and laid out the Academical Village along the central Lawn as the architectural anchor of the campus. UNESCO designated the Academical Village and Jefferson's home at Monticello a joint World Heritage Site in 1987. Charlottesville the town runs alongside the university with the kind of cultural calendar a major flagship draws. The Downtown Mall is a pedestrian-only stretch of Main Street running eight blocks, with the Ting Pavilion concert venue and the Paramount Theater anchoring the entertainment end. John Paul Jones Arena hosts UVA basketball and the bigger touring acts. Monticello itself sits two miles southeast of downtown and runs daily tours year-round.

Brentwood, Tennessee

The city of Brentwood has held its property tax rate at $0.29 per $100 of assessed value for more than 30 years, one of the lowest rates in Tennessee. Combined with the state's lack of an income tax, that makes the math here genuinely unusual for a fast-growing Williamson County suburb. The town sits 11 miles south of Nashville with low crime rates and strong public schools. Mississippian-era earthwork mounds at the Brentwood Library Park, Primm Historic Park, and the Fewkes Group Archaeological Site show settlement going back over a thousand years before the city existed. The Hill Center handles the upscale shopping. Crockett Park runs a network of walking trails through 165 acres of open green space.

What Ties the Eight Together

The connective tissue here is tax math plus everyday infrastructure. Oxford and Charlottesville run on flagship-university culture. Fairhope runs on the 1894 single-tax experiment. Naples and Hilton Head Island run on coastal snowbird economies that benefit from no state tax on Social Security. Wake Forest runs on Research Triangle proximity. Americus runs on the lowest cost of living on the list. Brentwood runs on the 29-cent property tax rate. None of these towns are inherently cheap, but each one has a structural reason the long-term math holds for residents.