My inlaws retired to Sedona after having lived about 1/2 of their adult lives in Arizona and 1/2 in Tacoma. They had enough after a few years and moved to Prescott. The problems as I understand them were crowds and the general level of rudeness and big-shotism around town. They said it was not only tourist that were responsible for this but also uppity locals. My inlaws are very private and demure types so take that into consideration.
They are pretty happy with Prescott after about 7 years. Prescott is at about 6,000 feet. If you are not happy with a pretty basic routine this is not the place to go,unless it is part-time.It is definitely a nice place for us to take our kids to visit Grammy and Pop Pop.It snows a little in the winter. It has a nice little “historic”downtown The town does all the holidays up nicely for families. There is another section with all the chain stores and restaurants.