It's amazing the snobbery people have about shitty places to live. There are nice small towns to live in in Mississippi. Those aren't for everybody (or most people), but they are great for people that like that scene. And some of those are basically Memphis suburbs, which make them somewhat appealing to more people, as they can at least drive into a small/medium city pretty easily. Outside of people looking for small town life, the Coast is the only place in Mississippi that anything competitive as far as quality of life. It's still small, but not as small and you have amenities that the rest of the state can't compete with.
And unless they are from a small town not attached to a larger town (like maybe New Albany?) there is not going to be any place in Mississippi that can really call the coast trashy. The only difference in the coast and the rest of the state is that it's neighborhoods/areas are not divided as strongly along socioeconomic lines.