  We study the galaxy number density (smoothed on a 5h^{-1} Mpc scale) around
18 low-redshift Lyman-alpha absorbers previously observed with HST. The
absorbers lie in the foregrounds of Mrk 335, Mrk 421, Mrk 501, I Zw 1, and 3C
273, all within regions where there are now complete redshift surveys to
m_{Zw}=15.5. We construct a smoothed galaxy number density field from the
redshift survey data and determine the distribution of densities at the
Lyman-alpha absorber locations. We also find the distribution of galaxy number
density for a variety of test samples: all galaxy locations within the Center
for Astrophysics Redshift Survey (CfA2), CfA2 galaxy locations along randomly
selected lines of sight (LOS), and randomly chosen redshifts along random LOS.
  The Lyman-alpha absorbers are present in dense regions of the survey, but
occur far more frequently in underdense regions than do typical luminous
galaxies. The distribution of smoothed galaxy density around the Lyman-alpha
absorbers is inconsistent at the 4-sigma level with the density distribution
around survey galaxies. It is highly consistent with a density distribution at
randomly chosen redshifts along random LOS. This supports earlier evidence that
the nearby, low column density (log N_{HI} < 14) Lyman-alpha forest systems are
spatially distributed at random; they are not well correlated with the local
large-scale structure.
