Image Credit: Estately.com
A recent blog post on Estately, a real estate website, compares what city is better a place to live in between Bellevue and Seattle. The article compares several characteristics such as: wealth, diversity, sex offenders, brunch, and a breadth of other topics.
Although entertaining, the article isn’t much of a true and fair comparison. Here are a few holes within the article:
- Population isn’t accounted for – Seattle is a much bigger city with a much larger population (Seattle’s population 634K vs. Bellevue’s population 126K). Population skews many of the comparisons portrayed in the article. For example the first comparison is the number of sex offenders Seattle: 842 vs. Bellevue: 16. Although the ratio in Bellevue vs. Seattle is much lower this comparison of total numbers by itself paints an entirely inaccurate picture for both cities.
- Hater nicknames – One of the comparisons is for both cities’ nicknames. Most all of these nicknames that are listed for Bellevue are negative: BlahVue, City in a Park, Bland-View, Mall City, The 425, Gateway to Issaquah, Lil’ B, East Mercer Island, Mistake by the Lake, The Belle, Seattle’s Shadow, Yuppieville, and KhakiLand. As mentioned many of these are negative, but more importantly has anybody heard of half of them? Although creative, they seem made-up. How about some credit for being a bunch of techie creative geeks? Do you have ideas for more positive nicknames for Bellevue? Sound off within the comments.
- Bellevue Square – How is it possible this article completely fails to mention Bellevue Square, one of the best malls in the United States when comparing shopping in the two cities?
- Bellevue based Companies – The comparison for companies in Bellevue misses mentioning the presence of Microsoft, Eddie Bauer, Bungie, Drugstore.com, etc.?
- Free Parking in Bellevue – The article states that the average parking cost in Bellevue is $7.30 for 2-hours (still less than Seattle at$7.50 for 2-hours). What’s not mentioned is that most major destinations in Bellevue have free parking (The Bravern, Bellevue Square, Lincoln Square, etc.). This is still one of Bellevue’s most underrated features.
There are several other interesting facts and comparisons listed in the article (not all bad). A few of the interesting comparisons to note are: Which Seahawks players have been arrested in Bellevue; average home prices, name origins, & much more.
Have some spare time to kill? Check out the article on Estately.
Oh…and for the record if you’re curious we recommend living in Bellevue. Just thought we’d clear that up.
As someone who moved to the pacific northwest in the past 9 months, i don’t see why there’s so much division and competition between Bellevue and Seattle..to me they’re pretty much one and the same. Taking 15 minutes to cross a bridge to get to another city should not create so much separation…physically and metaphorically. Living in either cities means you get to enjoy the good things of both.
Personally i enjoy living bellevue but love going to Seattle on weekends and some weeknights for dinner.
I agree 100%. It wasn’t always like this, up until maybe 7-8 years ago Bellevue was always viewed as Seattle’s afluent suburb. Sure there was a stigma against Bellevue back then as well but it was never a “Seattle vs Bellevue” rivalry that is emerging now.
I think the main reason for this new rivalry is because of Bellevue’s rise to become a city of it’s own and stepping out of Seattle’s shadow. With all of the new development in downtown, Bellevue now has many of the same amenities as Seattle and that has led to Seattleites wanting to put Bellevue in it’s place by talking negatively about it.
For me personally I think it’s dumb. City vs city comparisons make sense when it’s something like Seattle v Portland or Seattle vs SFO but not when it’s comparing a city to it’s largest suburb. What’s the point? People from both sides of the lake should appreciate the growth in both downtowns.
As someone who lives in Ballard and works in Bellevue for the second time after a 4 year hiatus, I think that Bellevue is growing up and getting to be more interesting. That happens with densification. Bellevue is so much more ethnically diverse that it’s earlier reputation and with the densification of downtown there is also now a diversification of age and interests. There IS life after 6pm. There ARE more than 2 good restaurants.
I don’t think we should worry about the rivalry. Competition can be healthy. I encourage people to Think Globally and Act Regionally. Don’t be afraid to cross the bridge! Seattle’s got the Market,Pioneer Square,Chinatown and SAM (among hundreds of assets). The Eastside has Bellevue Square, Bellevue Arts Museum (which you are a fool to not visit soon), the Woodinville wine district and Snoqualmie Falls (among dozens of assets). Blahvue ain’t so blah anymore.