Irvine is in Southern California. Southern California is a different state than Northern California, which is where San Francisco and Silicon Valley are.
To me, it presents itself as a kind of Stockholm syndrome. It develops because your brain is aware of the fact that the weather there is capable of killing you 3 months out of the year and it has to find a way to justify the fact that you're not leaving. Obviously there must be something really great about this place when it's not 20 below.
Minnesotans are unusually aware of the primacy of their bike paths, healthcare coverage, skyway'd cities and educational system. They talk to each other a lot about how great each of these things are, reinforcing the special shared status of this land of hardship, but good working folks.
In my experience, most people don't speak so highly of their hometowns as Midwesterners- Minnesotans in particular. When you move to a place where everyone sees the bad stuff and doesn't try to sugar coat it, it can be offputing. If you don't get enough milage between you and the cult of the midwest, you inevitably return to a land where people endure because everyone talks about how good it is when it's not too bad. It could be worse!
-Former Minneapolitan.
I see stickers saying "Keep Austin weird", and "Keep Portland weird". You never see those for Minneapolis. We don't need 'em.
I'm from Minneapolis as are a number of my friends. Some of them moved out to CA (Irvine) and some later moved to Seattle.
They /can't wait/ to move back to MN. For a while, I didn't understand them (usually, when they tell me this in the winter). But the music scene, culture, and comparative lack of traffic make a big difference.
I've yet to go to CA outside of layovers, but I still want to experience it for myself.