[dspeyer]

That's an exaggeration. While Seattle is painfully distant (painful really is the word for the 520 bridge) Bellevue is right next door. Bellevue is a city of 122k people, bigger than Ann Arbor. It's no great cultural center, but it's certainly more than just Microsoft people.

[potatolicious]

And unlike Ann Arbor it has neither the diverse industrial or academic base to provide for a diverse population. Bellevue is still largely an extension of Redmond, though admittedly not as thoroughly MSFT-dominated as Redmond proper thanks to some tech presence in Kirkland.

Bellevue can hope to have the diversity of Ann Arbor when they import a state school and a few cornerstone employers that aren't Microsoft or Microsoft-affiliates. I don't expect this to happen soon.

Hell, "Bel-Red" exists as a word for a reason.

In any case, I don't think my original point is at all an exaggeration. Redmond is a modern incarnation of a Company town, though it doesn't come with many of the stigmas of industrial company towns. Its proximity to Bellevue has meant the Microsoftification of Bellevue, rather than the diversification of Remond.

[tptacek]

"The diversity of Ann Arbor"? The goalposts have fallen somewhere weird here. I don't particularly like San Francisco, but Ann Arbor is basically Noe Valley transplanted into central Michigan; that is, it's got the diversity and culture of one neighborhood of a real city.

Redmond must suck a lot.

[mynameisvlad]

... "Bel-Red" is the road separating Bellevue and Redmond. That's why it exists.