My daughter might be going to grad school in Midtown Memphis.  Is it safe for a single women?  They said that a lot of the students live on Mud island.  Any thoughts?
Thanks

I don't think safe is the word I'd use for Memphis.

Like any city, know where the good and bad parts are.  I feel safe, but i've been here for my whole life.

The Downtown, midtown and east Memphis are safe in my opinion. There are large areas outside those safe areas that i dont travel unless i need to.

Both my daughters went to the U of Memphis and lived in Memphis while attending college. One is graduating this year and the oldest went to undergrad and grad school there. Neither have had any issues. Also, I dont recall any of their friends having an interaction with crime.

Those that dont live in Memphis, will just trash it because they are cool.

The only city in TN i've had trouble in is Chattanooga.

When I made a trip to Memphis, a few years ago, the things that stood out to me were

- the short distances between places I was told were OK to go, and the places I was told to avoid

- the (relatively high, in my experience) level of security measures people were taking in the 'OK to go' areas, and the holes I could easily see in their overall security

My 'street smarts' weren't suitable for the area, as I was getting too many conflicting signals, so I still go by my old rule of not stopping in Memphis without a guide who is familiar with the area.

I've lived in Memphis my whole life and things seem like they are not headed in the right direction.  Especially after Covid and George Floyd.

Mud Island as a whole is safer than probably anywhere else in the downtown Memphis area but even then, crime will drift over into it.  I know a woman that was murdered there a couple years ago.

Midtown is a crap shoot.  Some streets look really great with nice houses and well manicured, while the next street over is something out of Mogadishu. She will hear gunfire every night where she stays in midtown though.  5 of my friends moved from midtown to Germantown just in the last year.

She needs to ALWAYS travel in a pack and preferably have a few guys around that can semi-handle anything that might come their way.  Anything after dark, chances of issues goes up 3 fold.  Anything after 11:00pm chances go up 10 fold.  I suggest she not drive anything nice because carjackings/break-ins are huge right now!  Anything made by Dodge will get stolen and anything European made will get messed with. If she parks her car anywhere, it needs to be within at 5-10 second sprint of a major shopping/dinning area where more than 50 people are around.  Midtown is bad about where you have to park in a dark area way down a neighborhood street most times, that is where shit goes down.

Great.  Lots of warm fuzzies there.  Unfortunately almost all of the Optometry schools are in cities.

The big thing is to live and shop in the safer areas.  It is also wise to know when to call it a night.  Beale St is a prime example, problems don’t really crank up till around 11pm.  You will notice a drastic demographic shift.  Mud Island is pretty nice and swank, but it is boxed in and you have some really crappy areas real close by.  It is also pretty much in a food desert when it comes to supermarkets.  If she decides to come here, I would recommend looking at some of the newer apartment complexes out East.  One of the good things about Memphis, is that there are usually several routes to get around and you can get pretty much anywhere in town in 30 minutes or less.  

One of the things you will want to do for your daughter is to get her a Costco card and encourage her to use this for gas.  Gas stations ore one of the places where women are targeted for crime.  Usually purse snatching or carjacking.  I would also recommend going to East Memphis, Germantown or Collierville for grocery runs.

Get her a gun.

Two the schools she is looking at are in no gun cities, NYC and Boston,  3 are in easy gun states, PA, TN and AL.  I'm sure anywhere she goes carrying at school will be a no no but at least off hours she' be able to protect herself.

I've been in Germantown since October. I've driven all over downtown since I've been here, but always during the day. There is no way in hell I would go down town after dark. As others have said, it goes from nice to shady to shitty in the span of a block or two.

U of M seems to be pretty safe for the most part, always crowds of students running around any time I've been close to campus.

I've lived in Memphis and or Shelby County my entire life.  I was a professional courier for 7 years and I currently work in an open shop setting in the Bing Hampton area.  There are nice places in town but no place that I would consider "safe".  I'm not saying that to scare you.  You just need to be aware of your surroundings here just like any large metro area.  Harbor town/ Mud Island is okay but its real close to some bad areas.  If she had a room mate who is a local that might help.

We are coming to visit next weekend.   The school is across the street from Methodist University Hospital.  I’m looking at either the Holiday Inn Express across the street or something in East Memphis near where I-240 crosses Hwy 72 (Poplar ave). I assume East Memphis is a better area?  
They recommended a place called Railgarten.  Will they have metal detectors?

I would stay in East Memphis or Germantown unless you want to stay at one to the downtown hotels near Beale St or Main.  The hospital is way too close to 201 Poplar and the bus station to want to stay there after dark.  The Embassy on Shady Grove is where I would stay if visiting.  You can take Walnut Grove right down to the hospital area and get there fairly quickly.

This guy is correct.  That hospital is not in a great part of town.

Thanks all.  The trip was canceled.  She is leaning toward a school in the Northeast and it was going to cost me $3000 to fly to Memphis for the weekend.  I honestly wasn't thrilled with her living alone in Memphis.