Government West

Government West: Tell me what's special about Bellevue. Connie Marshall: Bellevue has 7 percent of the county population, but we have 11 percent of the county's jobs, 10 percent of the regional retail market, and 20 percent of the county's high-tech firms. Our 121,000 jobs are concentrated in our downtown core. That's what's special about Bellevue. Prior to my time, the city decided for itself that it was going to be the economic powerhouse of the east side, the hub for transportation, and have a real downtown. Now, that's important, because we only have 114,000 residents. So, we're a net importer of jobs. We have 54 percent of those jobs in high-growth services, like insurance, technology, real estate, retail-and we're very careful about which industries we go ( www.govwest.com )