Bartlett Area (Memphis, Covington, Central: city hall, rentals, high crime)

[tmford87]

Hey guys - I'm so glad I found this site. Here's my situation:

My wife just got accepted into the grad program at the University of Memphis. This means that in the next two months we're going to have to find jobs and a place to live. We currently live in New Orleans. We want to rent at least for the first year or so until we get to know the area. A lot of the rentals I've found that are in our price range (around 1k monthly) are in the Bartlett area. I've read that this is a pretty nice area - safe and not too bad of a drive to the university (we're used to an hour drive to school here so 20-30 min would be great). The area that has the most houses for rent is around Birkenhead St. How is this area?

Also, I have a B.A. in Graphic Design with a minor in Computer Science. I currently work in automotive sales, but have quite a bit of experience as a Computer Technician. I've already looked into opportunities at Fedex, but would greatly appreaciate any suggestions of some large employers in the area. Thanks in advance for any help or advice!

[Geneyus]

Originally Posted by tmford87

Hey guys - I'm so glad I found this site. Here's my situation:

My wife just got accepted into the grad program at the University of Memphis. This means that in the next two months we're going to have to find jobs and a place to live. We currently live in New Orleans. We want to rent at least for the first year or so until we get to know the area. A lot of the rentals I've found that are in our price range (around 1k monthly) are in the Bartlett area. I've read that this is a pretty nice area - safe and not too bad of a drive to the university (we're used to an hour drive to school here so 20-30 min would be great). The area that has the most houses for rent is around Birkenhead St. How is this area?

Also, I have a B.A. in Graphic Design with a minor in Computer Science. I currently work in automotive sales, but have quite a bit of experience as a Computer Technician. I've already looked into opportunities at Fedex, but would greatly appreaciate any suggestions of some large employers in the area. Thanks in advance for any help or advice!

Bartlett is a good place to live. East Memphis might also have some reasonably priced rental houses in safe areas. There is a map link floating around in the Memphis forum that shows the recommended "safe" areas of Shelby County.


My recommendation for finding a job would be to pull up 4 or 5 search engines and type in several job titles in each one. Even small changes in job titles can be the difference in whether a job shows up, so you have to try several different ones (computer tech, graphic designer, IT, blah blah). I like to keep track of what jobs are floating around in my field in case something good pops up, and this method helps me find more jobs than only using 1 search engine or job title.
Search "Memphis, TN" instead of naming smaller cities, and it will search the metro area. I think you'll have better results that way rather than trying to contact individual companies.

I usually use these websites:
careerbuilder.com, careerjet.com, indeed.com, snagajob.com, and simplyhired.com.
Monster.com sucks.

[charper1]

I work at Nike and we are also hiring mid to high level.

Here is the crime search map tool and a sample search for 1 month's data (I removed prostitution, shoplifting and vandalism): Memphis Crime Tracker - crime.commercialappeal.com

[tmford87]

Thanks for the suggestions - the stickied area map was extremely helpful.

Heh I think if I were coming from somewhere other than New Orleans that crime map would seem pretty scary.

[charper1]

Could be. That was just a sample high-level overview. You can zoom into very specific areas too. I think you know that already but just making sure. If anyone knows were to get one for the North Mississippi area, that would be great too.

[UofMGrad92]

FYI, Birkenhead is not located in Bartlett. It is near Bartlett but is in the Memphis city limits. If you are looking for housing in Bartlett I'd check out a map that has clear city limit boundaries or call Bartlett City Hall and ask them if the address you are interested in is located in the Bartlett City Limits. Lots of less than scrupulous landlords say their property is in the Bartlett area trying to confuse people into thinking they are renting in Bartlett when they are actually in Memphis.

If you want to be in Bartlett, I would think you could get a rental home for around $1000/month in the older parts of town with smaller houses. Check out near Elmore Park Middle School, Ellendale Elementary School, Bartlett High School, or near Bartlett City Hall (Altruria Rd and Stage Rd intersection). If you can't find anything in Bartlett in your price range, the area you are looking at isn't known for high crime and would probably be fine. But if you are going to live in the city limits of Memphis you could pick better locations for the commute to the U of M and the quality of the neighborhood.

[Geneyus]

You could live in the area closely surrounding the UofM (Spottswood, Echles, Cowden Dr) and find some very affordable housing if you don't mind a little bit of crime. Then your wife could walk to class, and you would be close to anywhere in Memphis. Memphis and the UofM police do a pretty good job of patrolling the area. Your biggest problems would probably be parties on your street and auto burglaries around the UofM.

I attended the UofM and never had a problem around campus.

[Ginsaw]

First of all, I looked at that crime map. Pretty amazing really. The darn thing was so crowded they had color coded crime "sticky" things piled on top of each other. I don't see how they could find room for any more. And it looked like the whole city was clotted up with it.

About the only place I didn't see evidence of crime was in the middle of the Mississippi River. Well, Nonconnah Creek and the Wolf River look pretty safe I guess.

Anyway, Bartlett is more than a 20 minute drive to the U of M. It's more like 30-45 in rush hour traffic, which will be rather heavy. You'd come down Covington Pike, then I think south down Perkins and west on Poplar and then cut over to the school, or come down Covington Pike, then west on Summer to Highland, then south to the school. Those are imo the most straight forward ways. There's another way involving Goodlett and Central, which will put you alongside the main school parking lots.

Since you're already in the automobile industry, you'll be happy to know that Covington Pike is one of the city's biggest centers of car sales. But you probably already knew that.

Probably I'd take that advice about looking for a home in the U of M area. Nice, small, older houses with decent size, but not too big yards. Many students and teachers live in those. Due to the fact of those folks coming and going, I would imagine there will be many rentals available.

That area is probably a lot closer also to possible Fed Ex employment.

Good luck!

[Geneyus]

Someone post the map with the color coded areas that are safe. The map posted earlier with stickers all over it doesn't help.

[waylay00]

It's a stickied thread at the top of this forum section.