OBERLIN, Ohio– Just over a year ago, Betsy and Larry Mirel moved from Washington D.C. to Oberlin.

The couple moved into Kendal of Oberlin, a retirement community, so they could take advantage of the benefits of living in a small town.

"When I first mentioned it, he said Oberlin; You want to go to Oberlin?  I said yeah, look at all that's accessible to us," says Oberlin resident Betsy Mirel.

“We love residing in a small college town. For example, there are more than 1200 events a year, it’s a walkable town, it’s a town that engages with each other there’s no barriers or fences which means we get the benefit of college students here at Kendal frequently often-entertaining,” says Barbara Thomas, CEO of Kendal at Oberlin.

Oberlin has affordable living, great health care options, and plenty of community engagement activities for retirees, according to Kiplinger.com.

They say it's a smart city for retirees.

I think they are right; what do you want when you retire?  You want a chance to do things you enjoy, and you want it to be as frictionless as possible.  You get tired of the traffic in the big city, everything is so difficult to do, and so expensive.  Out here, the things that we like are easily accessible, inexpensive, and you can do things at a spur of the moment.  We went to a senior recital last night," says Oberlin resident Larry Mirel.

Besides all of the activities, all town residents age sixty-five and older can attend classes for free at Oberlin College.

"We can't begin to go to as many as we want to go to, because there's just too many of them," says Mirel.