You're right that there are probably more natural little Italy's out there, but no way you'll find an equally good Chinatown within a 2 hour drive of that little Italy. But, if you love Italian food and hate Chinese, then maybe that's a trade you're (not you specifically) willing to make.
I can see the access to nature as a reasonable trade off, if you're out hiking every weekend then maybe that could make the M-F in the smaller town more liveable
It definitely is an interesting situation
There's a variety of reasons for this I could speculate on, and three of the firmer ones are refugee resettlement (Minneapolis and Somalis, pre-cool Cali and Hmong, Michigan and Syrian refugees), Central/South American immigration patterns beyond the border states, and military bases which tend to show up all over the midwest/west/southeast/southwest (Korean, Vietnamese, German and maybe smaller ones but those stand out).
These communities exist alongside the traditional cultural elements of the city and can often be blocks away. But, the areas tend to look a lot less like Chinatown and more like Flushing - maybe more insular, but still plenty authentic.
Yeah I mean I agree with you in theory, but I just haven't seen that in practice. I'm not saying you're wrong - the most likely answer here is that I just haven't been to the places that you're talking about.
All of the midwestern cities that I've lived in have definitely lacked a lot of cultural diversity, even if you drive out to the outskirts of the city where the majority of minorities tend to live (again, in the cities I've been to).
Maybe because the majority of people in these cities aren't as interested in the diversity, so the diverse populations can't really start a business that succeeds since no one (outside of their tiny community) wants to go there?
Or, I'm just wrong and haven't been to the right places
So what do these in-between places offer, besides the cost of living? You tend to get off the beaten path nature where the cost of living in the city means you can actually afford a vacation home (Minneapolis and Chicago get the great lakes northern coast lines), funky college towns that grew some tech talent for various reasons and are college-y and by great natural areas (old Bozeman, old Austin, old Boulder, current Ft. Collins), and lastly I'd say genuine immigrant population and their subcultures, and food to match. There are legitimate Little Italys out there, but they just left NYC because it's too expensive (or also refugee resettlement plans). Minneapolis, Syracuse, parts of Tennessee, parts of TX that aren't Austin, etc.
You throw a tech salary into that mix, and it becomes really fascinating.