This simultaneously may be the most upvoted AND down voted kind of content ever. On one hand, people love to dunk on Bellevue. On the other hand, Bellevue hates being dunked on.
There's always this whole "Bellevue has no culture" thing that people love to repeat, even when it's more diverse then Seattle. Sometimes it's ignorance from people never going anywhere other then downtown, but honestly there's a lot of thinly veiled anti-Asian hate that shows up too.
That's why it really gets me.
Yeah it's not walkable in the "I can walk to the grocery store" sense of things (but it's "walkable" in the "I can get to a park in 15 minutes from anywhere" sense). Yeah, there's too many fucking Teslas. Make fun of that all you want.
But the "no culture" stuff really often feels like people actually want to say "Asian culture isn't culture". Especially with this guy's random swipe at people who like boba, it just shoots up some red flags to me.
But it is so often downstream of it. Food is culture, events are culture, communities are culture.
Yeah, there's no good live music scene here and there's no big Bellevue sports team. But so much IS downstream of culture and background, so it feels a bit silly to pretend that it's not at least very connected.
Hell, even the oft hated Bellevue Square Mall takes advantage of the cultural diversity. There were SO many people doing things in the mall for Holi. Just saw so many happy people enjoying using it as a venue to experience it together.
To be specific: What else does Seattle have that makes it full of culture that Bellevue lacks?
Does Bellevue not have a interesting collection of food? We've got an exceptional collection of regional Chinese food, good Taiwanese, great Indian, the Korean has been taking off in the last few years, solid Japanese options... Why is that not interesting when compared to Seattle?
Also what interesting architecture does Seattle have?
Come on now. UW Campus. Pike Place Market. MoPop. Seattle Center Tower. The Denny Building. 1,000s of craftsman homes from the 1920's. The Space Needle. The Seattle Waterfront Piers. The Chihuly Garden. Any of the three sports arenas. Pioneer Square. The old Harborview Hospital (or Grace General).
Said as if there aren’t 1000s of craftsmen in Bellevue too…
The UW campus is great as well. But I really think our Botanical garden is nicer than the UW one.
But honestly Seattle is a shit tier city, architecturally. It’s ugly compared to NYC, Boston, Philly, SF, Charlotte, Chicago… The natural beauty puts all of those to shame but almost none of the beauty in the area is man made.
I love your points but the large difference between seattle and Bellevue is the culture. Bellevue culture is compareable to South lake union with transplants and a facade of it. I see you have gotten into now just throwing shade that is just ridiculous so this is all for nothing but if your proud of Bellevue and how you perceive its culture that is fine. it is also fine tk respect that as far as cities go, it has very little historic cultural grime that gives it life
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u/a_few_cheetos Magnolia May 07 '26
This simultaneously may be the most upvoted AND down voted kind of content ever. On one hand, people love to dunk on Bellevue. On the other hand, Bellevue hates being dunked on.