Memphis is like any other city...it has its really nice areas, its nice areas, its so-so areas, its bad areas and its extremely shitty areas... the north-north and south are the shitty areas...just low income housing, mainly all black and gang type of areas...downtown has changed and keeps developing into nicer condos etc... all the county suburbs surrounding the city are still nice...the really nice areas are either right in the middle of the city or moving out towards the country a bit...there is so much freakin money in this city, its scary.
the city gets a bad rep because of the north and south ends and the 60% or so of the population being black and fucking stupid... the black on black crime is what you read and hear about and of course, the lazy black fucks here account for the extremely high welfare/unemployment rates... we do have our areas of trailer trash that cause a scene too, but for the most part, the groups of people stay in their own areas.
and yes, i do have some guns and its always better to be safe than sorry, but the only time i ever had any issue at all was when i was staying in a so-so part of town with an old gf and a drunk old guy tried to rob her storage building behind the house.
cant beat the food here though and the casinos are 25minutes or so from downtown (45 from me)
i wouldnt suggest anyone moving here unless they had money and could afford to live in a really nice area...i have too much here to leave...my work, country club and dad are here and that is enough to keep me around... its really much better than you might think
