re: What is yalls opinion of Memphis?

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Also, they have a fairly robust medical industry going on. You would think that and Fed Ex would bring some prosperity, but maybe it hasn't.

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There's a surprising amount of wealth in eastern Memphis, Germantown, and Collierville (also known as Fedex West, and Fedex East). I lived there for 4 years and I am still not sure where it came from. I concluded that there are a lot of early FedEx employees who have equity in the company and built massive homes off Johnson, Houston Levee, Shea, or Forest Hill to get away from the urban problems in Memphis.

Fed Ex's large HQ campus is out east off of Hack's Cross. Their IT Headquarters is in a sprawling office campus in Collierville. International Paper is also in a series of 4 towers in far eastern Memphis near the Germantown border. So even the rank and file at these massive Fortune 500 companies live in either east Memphis, Germantown, Collierville, or possibly Olive Branch because it's an easy commute to their offices. They rarely go west of Belle Meade unless it's to one of the Overton Square restaurants.

There are more Fortune 500 companies based in Memphis than in the entire states of Louisiana and Mississippi combined. They just aren't centered downtown like they are in other cities, and the city has grown out from the river in a lopsided way...similar to Baton Rouge. Autozone and Service Master are both downtown still. There's also St. Jude and the medical school nearby as well. But the money seems to have concentrated along Poplar/Union/Walnut Grove from there on east towards Collierville. The northern and southern parts of town are comparatively shitty.

One big problem Memphis has...it looks absolutely blighted from the perspective of people passing through on either I-40 or I-55. They don't plant a lot of trees or landscaping along the freeways like they do in Baton Rouge or Atlanta.