Selected
Listing of Active Retirement Communities
In Mississippi
General:
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United
States. Jackson is the
state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River,
which flows along its western boundary, which namesake is from the Ojibwe word
misi-ziibi ("Great River"). The state is heavily forested outside of the
Mississippi Delta
area, and its catfish aquaculture farms produce
the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States.
The state symbol is the magnolia
grandiflora tree.
When cotton was king during the
1850s, Mississippi plantation owners--especially those of the Delta and Black Belt regions--became
wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil, the high price of cotton on the
international market, and their assets in slaves. The planters' dependence on
hundreds of thousands of slaves for labor and the severe wealth imbalances among
whites, played strong roles both in state politics and in planters' support for
secession. By 1860, the enslaved population numbered 436,631 or 55% of the
state's total of 791,305. There were fewer than 1000 free people of color. The relatively low population of the
state before the Civil War reflected the fact that land and villages were
developed only along the riverfronts, which formed the main transportation
corridors. Ninety percent of the Delta bottomlands were frontier and
undeveloped. The state needed many more settlers for
development.
Mississippi generated
rich, quintessentially American music traditions: gospel
music, country music, jazz, blues and rock and roll. All
were invented, promulgated or heavily developed by Mississippi musicians and
most came from the Mississippi Delta. Many musicians carried their music north
to Chicago, where they made it the heart of that city's jazz and
blues.
African American in 1960,
discriminatory voter registration processes still prevented most of them from
voting, consequent to provisions of the state constitution, which had been in
place since 1890. Students and community organizers
from across the country came to help register voters and establish Freedom
Schools. Resistance and harsh attitudes of most white politicians (including the
creation of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission), the participation of many Mississippians in the White Citizens' Councils, and the
violent tactics of the Ku Klux
Klan and its sympathizers, gained
Mississippi a reputation in the 1960s as a reactionary
state.
The state repealed its
segregationist era poll tax
in 1989 and its ban on interracial marriage (miscegenation) in 1987. In 1995, it
symbolically ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which
had abolished slavery. In 2009, the legislature passed a bill to repeal other
discriminatory civil rights laws that had been enacted in 1964 but ruled
unconstitutional in 1967 by federal courts. Republican Governor Haley Barbour signed the
bill into law.
Geography:
Major rivers in
Mississippi, apart from its namesake, include the Big Black River, the
Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include
Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake and Grenada Lake.
The state of Mississippi
is entirely composed of lowlands, the highest point being Woodall Mountain, in the foothills of
the Cumberland Mountains, 806 feet
(246 m) above sea level. The lowest point is sea level at the Gulf coast. The mean
elevation in the state is 300 feet (91 m) above sea
level.
The coastline includes large bays at Bay
St. Louis, Biloxi and Pascagoula. It is separated from the Gulf of
Mexico proper by the shallow Mississippi
Sound, which is partially sheltered by Petit Bois Island, Horn
Island, East
and West Ship Islands, Deer
Island, Round Island and Cat
Island.
Climate:
Mississippi has a
humid subtropical climate with long
summers and short, mild winters. Temperatures average about 85°F (about 28°C) in July and about 48 °F
(about 9 °C) in January. The temperature varies little statewide in the summer,
however in winter the region near Mississippi Sound is significantly warmer than
the inland portion of the state.
The late summer and fall
is the seasonal period of risk for hurricanes moving inland from the Gulf
of Mexico, especially in the southern part of the state. Hurricane Camille in 1969 and
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which
killed 238 people in the state, are the most devastating hurricanes to hit the
state, both causing nearly total storm surge damage around Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula. As in the rest of the Deep
South, thunderstorms are common in
Mississippi, especially in the southern part of the state. On average,
Mississippi has around 27 tornadoes annually; the northern part
of the state has more tornadoes earlier in the year and the southern part a
higher frequency later in the year. Two of the five deadliest tornadoes in US
history have occurred in the state. These storms struck Natchez, in southwest Mississippi (see
The Great Natchez Tornado) and
Tupelo, in the
northeast corner of the state. About five F5 tornadoes have been recorded in the
state, the last one being in 1971.
Mississippi is heavily
forested, with over half of the state's area covered by wild trees; mostly
pine, as well as cottonwood, elm, hickory, oak, pecan, sweetgum and tupelo.
Demographics:
As of 2008, Mississippi
has an estimated population of 2,938,618. Mississippi's population has the
largest proportion of African Americans of any U.S. state,
currently nearly 37%. The center of population of Mississippi is
located in Leake County, in the town of Lena.
Due to patterns of
settlement, in many of Mississippi's public school districts, a majority of
students are of African descent.
African Americans are the majority ethnic group in the northwestern Yazoo
Delta and the southwestern and the central parts of the state, chiefly areas
where the group owned land as farmers or worked on cotton plantations and
farms.
African-American Baptist
churches grew to include more than twice the number of members as their white
Baptist counterparts. The African American call for social equality resonated
throughout the Great Depression in the 1930s and
World
War II in the 1940s. The American Civil Rights Movement had many roots in religion; both sides cited religious reasons for their
viewpoints. The end of racial segregation led to the
reintegration of some churches, but most today remain all black or all
white. Since the 1970s,
fundamentalist conservative churches have grown rapidly, fueling Mississippi's
conservative political trends.
The legislature's 1990
decision to legalize casino gambling along the Mississippi River and the Gulf
Coast has led to economic gains for the state. Gambling towns in Mississippi
include the Gulf Coast resort towns of Bay St. Louis, Gulfport and Biloxi, and the Mississippi River
towns of Tunica (the third largest gaming area
in the United States), Greenville, Vicksburg and Natchez. Before Hurricane Katrina
struck the Gulf Coast, Mississippi was the second largest gambling state in the
Union, after Nevada and ahead of New Jersey.
An estimated $500,000 per day
in tax revenue was lost following Hurricane Katrina's severe
damage to several coastal casinos in August 2005. In 2007, Mississippi had the third
largest gambling revenue of any state, behind New Jersey and Nevada.
Federally recognized Native
American tribes have established gaming casinos on their reservations, which are
yielding revenue to support education and economic
development.
Taxation:
Mississippi collects
personal income
tax in three tax brackets, ranging from 3% to
5%. The retail sales
tax rate in Mississippi is 7%. Additional
local sales taxes also are collected. For purposes of assessment for ad valorem taxes, taxable
property is divided into five
classes.
http://www.retirementliving.com/RLstate2.html#MISSISSIPPI
Cities with Active
Retirement Communities:
10 Mississippi
cities with active retirement communities:
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