A rapidly growing city with over 120,000 residents. Home to many big-time companies and their CEOs. It is right across the lake from Seattle, and is one of the biggest business and retail destinations in the state. The city as a whole is the 15th wealthiest municipality in Washington, and certainly the wealthiest large city. However, Medina, Clyde Hill and Yarrow Point are the exclusive towns where the Microsoft
people and Bill Gates live.
Downtown Bellevue is rapidly developing, with dozens of projects ranging from retail to business and condo towers going on right now. Recently boosted economy thanks to the construction of Lincoln
Square and the expansion or downtown retail, restaurants and nightlife. Most of the
people that live in downtown live in chic apartments and condos, single businessmen or wealthy immigrants.
Crossroads and Lake Hills is east of downtown. It's, relatively, the '
ghetto' part of Bellevue but is the most diverse part of the city, home to a lot of Mexicans and Indian
people who work at Microsoft. Most girls in Bellevue visit Crossroads frequently because its home to Bellevue's Planned Parenthood. Factoria is south, and a LOT of Asian
people live in the surrounding upperclass Somerset and Newport Hills area.
The city of Bellevue has the state's largest
Asian population per capita, and 1 in 4 residents were born outside of the U.S. Besides wealthy white
people who are the majority, there are large
Mexican, Jewish, Eastern European, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Persian communities on varying levels of the economic scale. Yes, there's even poor white
people in Bellevue, too.
People in other parts of the state generally stereotype Bellevue
people as being cultureless, wealthy and stuck up. The majority of the city voted for Kerry in the last election, which shows that a lot of the wealthy
people in Bellevue are less conservative than most rich
people. While its true the students have better cars than their teachers, and that in the Bellevue High School parking lot you will see many BMWs and Lexuses, not everybody has money to blow off.
The high schools:
Bellevue High - Awesome nationally known football team, kids from the wealthiest parts of Bellevue go here including Medina, Clyde Hill, Yarrow Point, Enatai, Woodridge and the downtown area. Thanks to them, and all the
Asian kids that go there it is in the top 100 of the best schools in America. It has approximately 1600 students.
Newport High - Academically the best school, also one of the top 100 best schools. Kids in the Factoria, Eastgate and Newport neighborhoods go here, also the wealthy Somerset and Newport Hills areas. It has approximately 1500 students.
Sammamish High - Serves a more diverse student population than any of the schools, including many poorer neighborhoods including Lake Hills, but also Bridle Trails. It's also in the top 100 schools, and is the most modern school in the district, including a new 8 story auditorium. It has approximately 1200 students.
Interlake High - Considered the poorest school in Bellevue, it's also in the top 100 schools and has the IB program. They aren't really good at sports and it has Bellevue's lowest graduation rate. It is the smallest school at 800 students.
Robinswood - The alternative where all of the schools send struggling students so they can keep their graduation rates and academic reputations.
