I used to work in Bellevue. In fact, the first job I got in Seattle was there.

Everyone knows Bellevue is dying. Look at how anemic their growth is compared to outperforming Seattle area across the Lake.

So bad, so sad, too much parking, not enough parks.

Wake me up when they stop subsidizing cars.

Bellevue looks nice from afar, but hang out there and it’s sooooo fucking boring. “Flyover country” to Marymoor Park.

silly Drones
avoiding Office
Spaces like the Plague
Real Estate Moguls terrified
their Investments're gonna Fail

what's a strapping young
Capitalist 'sposed to
Think? is the End
finally Near?

Bellevue
you've Come so far
& yet have so Far to fall

Hahaha. Oh. This is just the first shoe. Wait seven months or so.

But the RWNJs say it's Seattle that's dying.

If "Bellevue were dying" were true, then why are houses so expensive in Bellevue? Why is the school system preferred? Why is there less crime, and less garbage. Uh oh. Sounds like Big Eastside manipulating the data to lie and make themselves look better. How can we let that keep happening? Computer nerds (obviously -- just look how they dress!) hacking the best-place-to-live calculator to weight Bellevue higher. Nice try. We all see right through it, eh TheStranger .

Bellevue, Kirkland, Issaquah are way better for families. Most of the friends I grew up with, who came from Seattle ended moving out of there when it came time to have kids. A bunch relocated to Renton and the Eastside, or further out in Carnation or Duvall. It's nicer to the east. And, if you need to go to a game, a concert or place with 200 special bars, you can drive / easily drive home after, or take an uber.

And, if you need to go to a game, in Seattle, a concert, in Seattle, or place with 200 special bars, in Seattle, you can drive / easily drive home after, from Seattle, or take an uber, from Seattle.

I do like how Charles doesn’t even attempt to use the same metrics on opposite sides of Lake Washington. For Bellevue, the metric is office space; for Seattle, it is population. Expanding on @12, how many of us who lived in Seattle for a long time regard the recent dramatic population increase as a good thing? Normally, the Stranger decries how expensive and crowded Seattle has become. There must be a reason Charles used population growth for Seattle. What could it be?

Hmmmm…

Charles’ lack of an editor unintentionally revealed why he didn’t use office metrics for Seattle:

“Amazon … has already planned to exit at least three leases in downtown Seattle. And Meta Platforms has confirmed it will sublease buildings in Seattle”

Oops.

It is odd that the people who complain about Seattle the most typically don’t live there but identify with it so hard. And go bananas when the data supports Seattle to be vibrant and growing while the ‘burbs are dying…of boredom. Why IS that???

@16: The data Charles has here cited in no way “supports Seattle to be vibrant and growing”; as I noted, by the very same metrics Charles applies to Bellevue, Seattle is dying. Adding population to a city already in housing-affordability and homelessness crises seems unlikely to improve this.

Speaking only for myself, I care about Seattle because I happily lived there for decades, until catastrophic failure of political leadership produced the above-mentioned crises. I comment here in the hope of adding some small voice of reason, to oppose the dishonesty the Stranger constantly delivers. I hope this will provide some small assistance toward Seattle’s recovery from these crises.

My god, there's bad journalism, and then there's bad, dishonest journalism.

Using totally different metrics to prop up Seattle while belittling Bellevue, shooting yourself in the foot by using quotes that show Seattle's office space is also being abandoned, using one city's population growth with no context as a measuring stick for success, using an economic downturn after a pandemic to try to pin oversupply of office space on social policy, zero discussion about crime and homelessness stats. It's like I'm reading Newsmax, and not The Stranger.

Mudede is clueless, but what else is new? I moved from Seattle to Bellevue 4 years ago and couldn't be happier with it. My car hasn't been broken into once. I can walk to work. I can park at the grocery store for free, with no hassle. I never have to travel on an Interstate highway if I don't want to. I can be in Seattle in 20 minutes if need be. Lots of great restaurants and bars, no derelicts on the streets. Plenty of safe parks and the police show up if you call them. Bellevue is great.

Far simpler answer: Neither city is dying, and hasn't been dying for quite some time. Seattle was dying in the 1970s (Boeing Bust) but then recovered. More recently it has been booming. All those homeless you see? It is because Seattle is booming. Homelessness is a housing problem, and there aren't enough places for people to live.

Meanwhile, tech is in a small downturn. Not like the dot-com implosion, but still a downturn. Meanwhile, the pandemic. It baffles the mind that no one mentions the fucking the pandemic with articles like this, since it is the biggest cause of all of this. We are still recovering (in many ways) from the pandemic. One of which is that people are reluctant to go back to the office. There are fewer people in the office, a downturn, so now tech businesses don't need the office space.

The little skirmishes between the Seattle city council and Amazon are just that. Amazon is a ruthless business. They don't want to pay taxes. But they also don't want to cut off their nose to spite their face. Moving to Bellevue makes it harder to attract workers. So they split the difference. Some workers prefer working in Bellevue -- most don't. They get to play it both ways. They have a satellite campus to appeal to East-Side workers, while pressuring Seattle to play nice, since they are giving the allusion of moving (at one point Amazon implied they were going to pull a Boeing, and move their headquarters). But downtown Seattle remains the most popular place for business in the area, and it isn't even close.

I’d still rather shop in Bellevue.

Stick a fork in Bellevue, it has gone to meet it's maker.

Killed by Kar Kulture

@24: Oooh, have I offended the Last Internet Action Hero Tough Guy? Is he going to flame me?!?

While I like your inadvertent admission Sawant’s policies have made life in Seattle so miserably wretched that merely residing there anymore requires “balls”, her many failed policies just provide additional reasons I’m glad I left. There are other, more important ones, but as they are none of your business, I won’t recount them here.

“Who gives a flying fuck what you think you little bitch?”

Um, persons who voluntarily respond to my comments, even when my comments clearly respond to other commenters?

"Why is the school system preferred? " Is it? Bellevue is the first district in the region that is going to close schools (3 of them) because of declining enrollment. Seattle's going to get there but if those Bellevue schools are so great, why isn't their enrollment stable?

@27: Thank you for confirming why Charles did not use consistent metrics for his cross-lake comparison.

@24: If you have a personal list of exactly which of CM Sawant’s many failed policies have made residing in Seattle such an awful grind, I ask for you please to share it. I would like to compare it with mine.

@30: In the headline post, Charles merely alluded to CM Sawant; you’re actually the first person here to mention her by name. So, your surprise wild swing at me about her came off as a bit obsessive. As you took over from Charles, I would like to know exactly what you think she’s done to make Seattle such a miserable place to endure, residents need “balls” just to stay. Normally, leaving is regarded as a bigger effort than staying.

(Also, by attacking me, after I’d mentioned Charles’ fundamental dishonesty, while not uttering a word about his fundamental dishonesty, constitutes a great way to convince readers you mind criticism of dishonesty more than the dishonesty itself. I don’t know if that was your intent, but if it was, I dare say you succeeded.)

@32: “… I don't accept your premise of fundamental dishonesty…”

You don’t think Charles’ apples-to-oranges equivalence here is fundamentally dishonest? I suggest you read @18 and @27 again.

Less white than Seattle. 50.2% to 64.9% according to the 2022 census.

I voted with my feet. I left Seattle with my family for the eastside. We were playing in the park and there was a man screaming in the woods. He was in withdraw. I wished I could take that pain from him. When I called the non-emergency police number, they told me there was nothing to be done. We left the park. The open drug use forced us out of the community spaces over time. From the streets of Seattle to the parks, I simply did not feel safe with my family any longer.

This article will of course appeal to the regular readers of The Stranger. The commercial real estate industry is in deep trouble, and Bellevue is no exception. I don't think Charles is a fool, but this article is foolish in its assertions. The honest headline for this article would be "I don't like capitalism and will cherry pick evidence to get you to agree with me."

A supporter of Kshama Sawant put a "tax the rich" sign on my lawn. My blue collar had slowly changed white over the years and I started to wonder if I was now "the rich". The inclusive community in Seattle had made a point to now exclude me. I voted with my feet.