Does the Memphis metro area has a small town suburb mentality?

[Mr Downtown]

I agreed with everything you said with the exception of the statistic. I'm from Cordova, and the majority of my friends back in Memphis, or even here at Purdue University purchase rap music. in fact the only time i ever hear rap music is at parties which i suppose is understandable considering coldplay, modest mouse, The killers arent exactly dancing music.

I seriously doubt that the majority of rap music sales are in the Caucasian demographic.

[memphman]

actually..... the majority of rap sales are to whites... I actually saw that on the CBS news last night, but I wasnt really suprised. 85% is a bit high, but it is over 51%

But as a one time visitor to Memphis, I was suprised at the feel of the city. I actually liked the fact that it didnt have a BIG time urban, or fast paced feel of a big city. Seemed pretty laid-back in nature.. very manageable to get around, and not overwhelming in any aspect. Look forward to seeing the changes in the city since i visited in 2003.

[Clobber]

I wasn't trying to drag you down, I was just sharing my thoughts just as you were.

For everyone that keeps saying Memphians have a small town mentality, I don't know what thats suppossed to mean?! Stop wanting Memphis to be something else that its not. The way Memphis is is what makes it one of the most unique and special cities in the country. If downtown isn't the office tower core, who cares. Downtown is great and it will be what it will be. I would hate it if downtown Memphis looked like every other downtown in America. I love what we have and I think we should appreciate it and nurture what we have instead of trying to make it something its not. Friends who visit me from all over the country absolutely fall in love with the laid back, but still vibrant aspects of the city.

[sleepy]

I've lived in New Orleans, Houston, Nashville, and now live not too far from Minneapolis.

With the exception of New Orleans, it was common to hear the residents of all those cities complain about their "small town mentality." It's nothing unique to Memphis.

[mandrws1]

Are you a native Memphian Mandrws1?

[memphian]

If you want to see the small town suburbian mentality at work.... take a look at the Peabody Place thread. LOL - somehow its been twisted to talking about a grocery store in the Medical area with lots of up-front parking.

[UptownNewOrleans]

When most people say they hate Memphis and can't wait to get out, what they really mean is that they hate blacks and can't wait to live in an all white place.

[satalac]

It's certainly not unique to Memphis. In fact, it is probably worse in other cities. Nashville people have to be the biggest closet racists I've ever met in my life. While they'll never say anything overtly racist, they constantly allude to it. Nashvillians who currently reside in Memphis are the number one perpetrators of the "I hate memphis" crap. They like Nashville because their in the clear majority and don't have to share the city. They can marginalize blacks there. The further east you go in the state, the worse it gets. East Tennessee has the be the most racist place in the world. A well-educated and wealthy person from the Tri-Cities who unfortantely had to temporarily reside in Memphis was dining with me in a Memphis restaurant, which had about 1/4 of its customers as black. He told me, "I don't think they should be eating in here with us. Back home we don't have that problem." He got out of Memphis as soon as he could. I'm not saying everyone from out that way is racist. A girl I know from the tri-cities thinks Memphis is a unique and fun city and loves living here. I just have yet to meet a Memphis hater that wasn't racist. Memphis has its problems that make it a difficult place to live in, but it is a really tough place to be if you're racist, and those are the people that use the word "hate" when describing Memphis.

[tennreb]

pssst, this thread is about memphis, not about your brash generalizations of nashvillians hating memphis and blacks. i do take offense to your comment about nashvillians, not only because i am a nashvillian who loves memphis AND people of all color, but as a human being. saying that nashvillians are closet racists is just as bad as someone being openly racist to anyone. so please think about all sides before making ignorant statements as the one above.

[Aporkalypse]

With all due respect, this is an incredibly one-sided view of the problem: i.e. - "when they move in crime goes up" - that completely ignores the fact that crime goes up AFTER all the white people move OUT, running ever further out for the suburbs at the first sign of a black person in their neighborhood, where businesses, jobs, shops, entertainment, and opportunity follow them into the suburbs, and the exurbs, and the far far reaches of sprawl. Yes, unsurprisingly, crime and poverty go up when the tax base in an area crumbles, the services disappear, and the decent jobs are replaced either by nothing or by low-paying service sector positions with no benefits and no hope of working your way up the employment ladder.

This idea that there is a problem with "black culture" completely ignores the relationship between culture and socioeconomic conditions. It's not true to say that crime goes up when black people move into a neighborhood. It IS true that crime goes up when everybody with resources ABANDONS a neighborhood. I think you are missing the true cause of the problem, which is a combination of two major factors: a fundamental reorganization of our economy from an industrial to a post-industrial economy and the devastation left behind in the wake of white flight.

Almost everything of cultural significance that Memphis has contributed to the world (and there is a lot of it) comes from black culture. I find it profoundly sad to see this same city disavow and disparage its own black citizens whose creativity and artistry put this city on the map to begin with. Memphis would be NOTHING - it would have no history and no distinctive culture to speak of - were it not for its black citizens.

I definitely don't agree that the only reason people leave Memphis is because they're racist - there are many other reasons to leave Memphis, many of them are legitimate. But if we leave racism out of the equation we are definitely missing the big picture.

[satalac]

If Nashville could vote Memphis out of Tennessee, you don't think they would?

[Mr Downtown]

As much as I hate to say it, there is some truth in this statement. East Memphis used to be strictly white but now black folks are moving over there in droves. Are white people gonna pack up and leave Germantown, Cordova and Collierville because most rich blacks and rap stars live in their community?

[memphman]

If Nashville could vote Memphis out of Tennessee, you don't think they would?

[Fellowmann20]

As much as I hate to say it, there is some truth in this statement. East Memphis used to be strictly white but now black folks are moving over there in droves. Are white people gonna pack up and leave Germantown, Cordova and Collierville because most rich blacks and rap stars live in their community?

I'm going to tell you straight up what I think, that you're an idiot and so do people who think like you. The inner-city was once owned and occupied by white people and because they didn't want to live around blacks, they ran en mass. It's 2007 and this foolish way of thinking STILL exists What's flabbergasting to me is that Shelby County residents think that by leaving Memphis they escape crime. Little do they know that crime is spreading into Germantown, Collerville and even into northern MS. Memphis metro residents want nothing to do with Memphis but at the same time want to reap many of the city's successes. Any points you made up to this point were negated by the BS you spewed such as "when black people move into a neighborhood crime goes up" No one is to blame for your neighborhood going downhill but you and your kind, for not sending a message to the criminal element that your neighborhood will not be their playground. While it's true that cities with high black populations have horrendous crime & poverty rates, plus garbage schools, just packing up and leaving isn't going to solve anything because 9 times out of 10, once the criminal element sees that their turf is unsuitable for whatever reason, they seek out the suburbs because they see a new market for their criminality.

[Bears]

Oh yeah, of course! Its not the criminals fault for destroying neighborhoods....What was I thinking?.......Its the homeowner's and worker's fault! We shouldn't move out when the next door neighbor is getting robbed and the old woman across the street was shot dead! No don't move out! When the criminals come to our house we will tell him we wont take this, and hopefully he wont shoot us on the spot!

Let me tell you something. My aunt (who lived in Raliegh) was shot dead back in 2004 by a 15 year old black teenager who was robbing her house, had robbed several other houses in the area, and beat an old lady across the street. And you expect people not to move out when thats happening all the time, and then again there is a mayor that wont even fund the police.

You're the complete idiot!

[UptownNewOrleans]

Oh yeah, of course! Its not the criminals fault for destroying neighborhoods....What was I thinking?.......Its the homeowner's and worker's fault! We shouldn't move out when the next door neighbor is getting robbed and the old woman across the street was shot dead! No don't move out! When the criminals come to our house we will tell him we wont take this, and hopefully he wont shoot us on the spot!

Let me tell you something. My aunt (who lived in Raliegh) was shot dead back in 2004 by a 15 year old black teenager who was robbing her house, had robbed several other houses in the area, and beat an old lady across the street. And you expect people not to move out when thats happening all the time, and then again there is a mayor that wont even fund the police.

You're the complete idiot!

[fearlessvk]

There's a difference between leaving a neighborhood where there is actually a debilitating crime surge (a perfectly reasonable thing to do) and leaving a neighborhood in anticipation of a debilitating crime surge when nonwhites begin to move in (an unreasonable thing to do which actually contributes to the crime surge in the future, thus fueling a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy). There is abundant evidence that people do the latter. I can't fault anyone for getting out of an neighborhood where they are genuinely unsafe - I would do the same thing. But what really needs to be discussed frankly is a kind of racial paranoia that causes people to IMAGINE the neighborhood is unsafe when it is still perfectly safe.

[qwertycc]

^The latter is definitely what is and has been rampant across the Memphis area. Winchester Road could be a national case-study. Sadly, parts of Cordova are taking the same path.

"Oh no! We've been annexed by Memphis; therefore such-and-such races will move in; therefore crime will destroy our neighborhood and schools; therefore we should move before this happens; and therefore we should sell our house well below market rate to avoid being stuck here."

Then with houses being undersold and amid the misinformed frenzy and desperation, crime enters the neighborhood by way of a socioecomic shift, not a racial one.

[memjax2187]

I've never lived anywhere but Memphis and Jackson (TN, not MS). Every time I turn around I hear people saying something bad about Memphis: "I hate Memphis", "ain't no white people left in Memphis", "You couldn't pay me to VISIT Memphis, much less live there", etc., and other trash to the effect that Memphis is just the absolute worst place in the whole world, when in fact it is most certainly NOT. Granted, Memphis DOES have its problems, but what city DOESN'T have problems?

People here in the Mid-South talk about Memphis as if it were the only place in the USA where crime occurs, where there is poverty, where businesses can't stay open, etc., but Memphis is NOT anywhere NEAR as bad as some people make it out to be. I say that Detroit and Washington, DC, to name two examples, are much worse places to live than Memphis ever THOUGHT about being.

I get SOOOOOOOO sick of people constantly putting Memphis down. I say, if you're not willing to help improve the situation, then STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT IT!

YES! Even the people that live in the city have that mentality. Ive been sayin this for years...even before I moved there....the people are so small town minded. Some dont even realize that they live in a city i believe.

[TennBear]

People here in the Mid-South talk about Memphis as if it were the only place in the USA where crime occurs, where there is poverty, where businesses can't stay open, etc., but Memphis is NOT anywhere NEAR as bad as some people make it out to be. I say that Detroit and Washington, DC, to name two examples, are much worse places to live than Memphis ever THOUGHT about being.

[UptownNewOrleans]

No place is perfect, that much we know. It's been long established that cities with high black populations have serious crime & poverty problems, let alone substandard schools. At the same time, those cities have contributed much in the way of culture, music and history. New Orleanians like myself hear many of the same stuff about our city. I'm like "We know we're murder capital, we know we have crime problems; no need to continually remind us" Then I point out to them as long as you steer clear of the Uptown ghetto, 7th & 9th Wards you shouldn't have any problems.

[Memphis Love]

same with memphis, as long as you steer clear of North Memphis & South Memphis you shouldn't have any problems.