I lived in Memphis my whole life. I graduated high school there, so I can give you some low down.
Memphis is POOR. Some neighborhoods are dangerous. Stay away from South Memphis, North Memphis, and Whitehaven. If you are from Dallas, you should know where to go and where not to go. No big deal.
Many people here talk about Midtown. Midtown is my favorite area of the city, a Greenwich Village type area. There are many small bars and nightclubs to visit. (My favorite is the PandH Cafe). Memphis has a large park called Overton, where the zoo is located. But Midtown can be a rough place, there are crack houses next to beautiful antebellum homes. If you live here, make sure you have a good home securiity system.
Memphis is somewhat of a boring town to go “partying” unless you are into blues music. Beale Street is a tourist trap, but its cool to go down there sometimes. Memphis has a AAA baseball team called the Redbirds, who won the AAA system World Series last year or the year before. The baseball park is brand new and nice. And, Memphis has the NBA Grizzlies.
About 30 miles south of Memphis in Mississippi is a gambling city called Tunica, which has ten casinos, most of them are very nice and all have hotel rooms. Many of these casinos have live acts that play there. The food is usually very good.
Not much variety in restaurants, but there are many varieties. In the past ten years a lot of Hispanics have moved to Memphis, so now there are a lot of Mexican type places. A good place to look for things to do in Memphis is to look in the Memphis Flyer, a free alternative weekly. Look at their website, go to Google and type “MEMPHIS FLYER”.
Never rented a place in Memphis, but 1000 a month will get you a palace. Downtown is good in some ways, but to me, shopping would be difficult, there are not many grocery stores or shops downtown, you would have to go to Midtown for that.
There is a church on every corner in the city, no matter if you are in a black area or a white area. Baptist. Cannot buy liquor on Sunday
Personally, I hate Memphis. WHY do you want to move here? I hope you have an excellent job, because you will HATE this place when you arrive. Im not being a jerk, just saying from experience from living here for 30 some odd years.
SP