Bellevue a suburb of Seattle or Sister City (Like DFW/Minn-St.Paul)? (Spokane: live in, dryer)

[Back2Texas]

Originally Posted by wlw2009

Though Bellevue' population is ~130,000, it is definitely suburbia. The crime rate is extremely low, everything is new and in a Cul-de-sac. People don't say "oh Im going to Bellevue next month", they will always say, "oh Im going to Seattle next month". Seattle IS the city and it doesn't look like Bellevue will be anywhere near that title for 100 years, if ever.

I live in the DFW area and have spent a lot of time in Seattle/Bellevue as well. I completely agree with this. I would say Bellevue is more comparable to Plano. Which is a suburb of Dallas that you've probably never heard of unless you've spent some time in that area Plano's population is approaching 300k, it's home to many Fortune 500 companies, etc... but it's not Dallas, or Fort Worth. It's suburbia.

Another possible comparable would be Arlington. Actually, I believe the DFW area is officially the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area. More non-DFW people have heard of Arlington because it's where the Cowboys and Rangers play, but outside of the stadiums and the Six Flags amusement park, there's really not much going on there. Again, definitely not Dallas or Fort Worth.

[angelenogirl]

Originally Posted by Ira500

I wouldn't call it a sister city of Seattle unless we're talking about siblings who don't get along.

Wait...there are siblings who actually do get along?

[Xanathos]

Bellevue is it's own city right now - it falls into the "sister city" category of Minneapolis-St. Paul or San Francisco-Oakland or Dallas-Fort Worth - just in reverse. By that I mean in all of those cities, the wealth and power structure is consolidated in the primary city and the sister city is kind of the red-headed stepchild. In this instance, it's concentrated over in Bellevue.

Tacoma should, IMO be taken completely out of the metropolitan area statistic and put to stand on its own, given how far away it is.

Worth noting: There exists a very real possibility that, in our lifetimes, Bellevue will overtake Seattle as the primary city for the region. That's just how it is. Seattleites can think of it as a suburb all they like, but it doesn't make it so. 13 years ago, yes absolutely. Back then, the tallest building out there was, I believe, the PACCAR building. Now you can't even see it unless you're in its parking lot. Given the MUCH friendlier business environment and climate, willingness for growth, and capability to expand, it's going to continue to be the de facto launching point of corporate headquarters.

[RJ8089]

If the city manages Bellevue properly and continues to allow the more dense urbanization of it's downtown (more skyscrapers & taller skyscrapers), Bellevue has the potential in several decades to match Seattle's population.

Bellevue's one goal should be: To be better and larger than Seattle. Plain and simple.

[Ira500]

Originally Posted by RJ8089

If the city manages Bellevue properly and continues to allow the more dense urbanization of it's downtown (more skyscrapers & taller skyscrapers), Bellevue has the potential in several decades to match Seattle's population.

Bellevue's one goal should be: To be better and larger than Seattle. Plain and simple.

I'm not sure that adding a half a million residents would benefit Bellevue. Right now they've got around 130,000 people, and a bunch of corporate headquarters and office buildings. So Bellevue gets a lot of tax revenues, and can provide very good services for their residents. If it became much more populated, the quality of the services they provide would get diminished. If the goal is simply to increase the population, it will be difficult to simply increase the population with high earning tech workers only. If Bellevue's population equaled Seattle, there would be more poverty, traffic, and homelessness. Maybe not as bad as Seattle's, but Bellevue is pretty nice right now. I don't think it would be as nice if it had a much larger population.

[branh0913]

Originally Posted by BellevueNative

It's radically different from even 15 years ago. And it's about to start another huge round of development. Look for more cranes popping up.

People realize there is such a thing as a small city, right? It doesn't have to be large city or suburb. To compare Bellevue to a suburb like Sammamish is ridiculous. Bellevue has a sizable business downtown core in addition to its numerous residential areas.

An independent metro has it's own suburbs. Bellevue does not have it's own suburbs. Bellevue is ALWAYS Bellevue. A metro also has suburbs. Bellevue has places like Crossroads, Newport, Sumerset Hills, and Factoria, but those would more or less be considered neighborhoods within Bellevue. But every suburb has it's own neighborhoods.

[Xanathos]

Originally Posted by branh0913

An independent metro has it's own suburbs. Bellevue does not have it's own suburbs. Bellevue is ALWAYS Bellevue. A metro also has suburbs. Bellevue has places like Crossroads, Newport, Sumerset Hills, and Factoria, but those would more or less be considered neighborhoods within Bellevue. But every suburb has it's own neighborhoods.

OK, so tell me what suburbs there are to St. Paul or Oakland that couldn't be analogously applied in terms of scope to Bellevue? There's a frigging LAKE separating Seattle and Bellevue - I would imagine if you inquired as to local East side residents, they would likely claim that they are more a suburb of Bellevue (in Newcastle, Kirkland, Redmond, Issaquah, etc.) than they are a suburb of Seattle.

[branh0913]

And this is where you start to have the problem. People have this idea that a suburb means very close proximity to the city, when this isn't true. People also think suburb = lack of density, this also isn't true. A suburb is within the metro area of a cities core. They make up that cities population. I think when you have a situation where someone works in one city, but lives in another, that creates a continous metro area.

There are people who live in Everette but work in Seattle. People who live in Tacoma but work in Seattle. People who live in Seattle but work in Tacoma, Bellevue, or Everette, etc. No one sales there home in Bellevue because they got a job in Tacoma. But you probably would sell your home if you got a job in Spokane. No one really does that commute. That's the point I'm making, Bellevue, Tacoma, Everette, etc are all part of a unified metro areal.

On the West Coast people are just more likely to want to make everything a separate metro, when Bellevue wouldn't qualify for this, nor would Tacoma. The reality, they're all considered the same market. Someone who lives in Tacoma is a Seahawks and Mariners fan. I doubt Tacoma or Bellevue would ever qualify to get their own sports franchises.


Now the Bay Area is a little weird in this regard. But at least people in the Bay acknowledge that the Bay Area is all one consolidated area. They have individual cities, but people do collectively call it "The Bay".

Anyway I've found West Coast cities to be more inconsistent in these matters anyway. I think it's because too much of the populaition out West are concentrated in a handful of cities. So it seems to me people just do there own thing.

I also think the fact that there is an Oakland Raiders and a SF 49ers, when there is nothing but a bridge (that takes like 20 minutes to cross without traffic) are between them, is because of the AFL and NFL mergers, moreso than Oakland being this radically different market from SF. It's like giving Alpharetta in Atlanta it's own major league football team, or giving King Of Prussia in Philly it's own MLB team. Just wouldn't make sense.

The same is true with Bellevue. Obviously Bellevue has a different vibe than Seattle, but that's to be expected. Suburbs often have different vibes than their core cities. Brooklyn and Bronx has a different vibe than Manhattan, Dunwoody has a different vibe than Atlanta, and we can keep going on.

Now if you have an issue lumping Bellevue, Tacoma, Everett, and others into just the Seattle "catch all". Then At least you can just refer to it as the Puget Sound, similar to "the Bay Area".

[branh0913]

I also would admit, it ca get confusing. For example "parts of Philly" are located in New Jersy, which is a totally different state. This isn't confusing to me because I'm from Kansas City, Missouri, which shares the same market as Kansas City, Kansas which is clearly in another state. And in Missouri you also have St. Louis which shares a market with East St. Louis which is actually in Illinois. Though it should be noted that Kansas City, Kansas has it's own suburbs. But no one would ever have a football team for Kansas City, Kansas. The Chiefs and Royals stadiums are both located in Missouri.

Anyway, the line can be blurred to a very large degree in what actually constitute a separate metro. The only city that I know of that truly has outer suburbs that rely soley on the core city is NYC. But technically the 5 boroughs could definitely be their own separate cities, or suburbs of New York. But since these were annexed long ago, people rarely see them as separate anymore.

[Botev1912]

Originally Posted by branh0913

This isn't confusing to me because I'm from Kansas City, Missouri, which shares the same market as Kansas City, Kansas which is clearly in another state. And in Missouri you also have St. Louis which shares a market with East St. Louis which is actually in Illinois.

It's the same with Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA that are in the same metro area.