The winner: Memphis.
As an outsider (who travels to Memphis rather frequently for work), this has always been my preference. It's not just familiarity. Memphis has soul. And better BBQ. Memphis is the blues... Nashville is plastic fantastic pop-corporate country-and-other-various-and-sundry boring music. Musicians move to Nashville for a "career". Musicians move to Memphis for inspiration. Yeah, Memphis has more crime, corruption, and poverty, but there are good places to live, and you take the good with the bad. I think I would find Nashville to be simply annoying.
I've found that the locals feel the same way. In fact Memphians have a little chip on their shoulder about Nashville. It reminds me a little bit of the Pittsburgh vs. Philadephia rivalry I grew up with. To a complete outsider, say from Oregon or China, the differences may seem slight. But the locals can see the difference, because...well... there are real differences. I say hand over Philadelphia to New Jersey, where it really belongs, and... let's see... since no one would really want Nashville...maybe just ignore it, and its music.
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