Best Places to Live in Memphis & the Mid-South
This region's five places split along a real, honest axis -- Memphis's genuine global logistics and cultural significance set against a real, elevated crime profile, versus its more affluent, lower-crime suburbs, versus Jackson's own distinct role as West Tennessee's regional hub.
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Learn moreLogistics, Medical Research, and Corporate-Headquarters Workers
Memphis is the unmistakable pick for FedEx-tied employees -- the company is headquartered in Memphis and operates its SuperHub here (an 880-acre facility processing more than 3 million packages daily), directly employing more than 30,000 people with a total footprint exceeding 80,000 jobs. AutoZone and International Paper both maintain their own corporate headquarters in downtown Memphis as well, adding two more real, major Fortune 500 employers to the city's base beyond FedEx alone. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a genuinely globally recognized pediatric cancer research institution, is also headquartered in Memphis and is investing a further $1.4B in its campus, adding up to 2,300 new jobs -- a real, current positive counterweight to the city's crime profile.
Families Prioritizing Lower Crime and Affluent Suburbs
Collierville and Germantown are the clear picks for families wanting Shelby County's lowest-crime, most affluent suburban communities, at a real, substantial price premium over Memphis proper. Bartlett offers a genuinely more attainable version of the same Shelby County suburban logic.
Blues, Soul, and Cultural Heritage
Memphis's blues and soul heritage is not a faded historical claim -- Beale Street drew an estimated 5 million visitors in 2023, Graceland draws more than 600,000 visitors a year generating roughly $150M in local economic impact, and the city's broader 'music ecosystem' (including Sun Studio, where Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and B.B. King all recorded, and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music) contributes more than $720M annually, with over 60% of visitors citing live music as their primary reason for coming. Movers drawn specifically to this cultural depth have no real substitute anywhere else in this region or state.
West Tennessee's Own Regional Hub
Jackson serves a genuinely distinct role from the rest of this region -- it's West Tennessee's own regional commercial and healthcare hub, roughly 80 miles from Memphis, for movers who want proximity to (but not residency within) the Memphis metro, or who are drawn to Jackson's own more affordable, smaller-scale character.
Key takeaways
- Memphis fits FedEx-tied logistics workers directly, alongside AutoZone's and International Paper's own corporate headquarters and St. Jude's globally significant, actively expanding research campus.
- Collierville and Germantown are the clear picks for families wanting Shelby County's lowest-crime, most affluent suburbs; Bartlett offers a more attainable version of the same logic.
- Memphis's blues-and-soul cultural heritage (Beale Street, Graceland, Sun Studio, Stax Museum) is a real, substantial, ongoing economic and cultural draw with no substitute elsewhere in this region.
- Jackson serves as West Tennessee's own distinct regional hub, roughly 80 miles from Memphis, for movers wanting a smaller-scale, more affordable alternative to the Memphis metro itself.
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