They passed a tax on basically just Amazon in 2018 and there were rumblings of Amazon leaving the city for Bellevue/Redmond. The city council repealed it within a month and things quieted down, but then COVID happened, they passed basically the same tax again, and this time it stuck. Since then, Amazon's been slowly leaving Seattle for the eastside by moving employees as their building leases expire: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-no-longe...

Bellevue has a few advantages over Seattle. Seattle imposes a city level payroll tax that isn't in Bellevue, and there are other tax implications. Seattle's minimum wage is higher. Seattle has a more visible drug/homeless problem.

Seattle can charge a premium for its advantages over Bellevue because they provide additional value, and the premium Seattle charges is actually less than most people make it out to be.

Crime. Everyone moves from DT Seattle to the eastside when they start a family. It’s normalized at this point, where if you see a potential threat u just walk across the street and go on with your business.

Hostile business environment. Jumpstart, inflationary wage environment, etc.

Living in DT Seattle is just meh. Expensive and the food scene is terrible due to local labor policies.

Inability to get anything done from the local govt. Wilson spent her campaign promising to make it easier to build housing and just gave in to nimby interests again.

Local politics is lunacy. Constant issues with the the unhoused population but it’s ok let’s just keep pushing it to little Saigon / Chinatown! Close your eyes since it doesn’t happen if you’re in Wallingford, QA, or Ballard!

Fewer and fewer major cos investing into the area.

And then there’s 0 transit enforcement or even any attempt at it. We don’t even have fare gates on the link for gods sake.

It’s just completely absurd how mismanaged this city is, despite how much potential there is.

Nowadays more and more offices opening in Bellevue.