Oodles of Noodles

First of all I have to admit, my family does indulge in the occasional (relatively often actually) practice of "Chinese Sunday" where we either order take out or sometimes go and sit down in the restaurant for dinner. Furthermore, I do on occasion cook linguine and tomato sauce, usually Prego ("it's in there") for dinner, but I recently felt compelled to do some quick research online to see if it added support to my theory that this town needs more Asian or Italian restaurants like I need another hole in the head (I happen to have one more than most people by the way).
Let's start with stats about Columbus, Ohio- size: 225.9 square miles, Population: 728432 people (estimate for 2003), Ancestral Demographic: German 19.4%, Irish 11.7%, Italian only 5%, and even less than that of Asian ancestry. Now a quick search on a few different search engines gave up an estimated 400 locations each for Italian and Asian restaurants in Columbus, Ohio. I have to say that as much as I'd like to take those numbers and say I proved my point, I think that sounds a bit extreme, even though that is for individual locations not just business names I'd say that we could knock at least 75 off of each to be fair, that's still 325 individual restaurant locations for each in the city, that's more than one Asian and Italian restaurant per square mile.
I would not be too outraged by this if these places were actually putting out greatly varying degrees of quality or regional ethnic fare but they're not! The vast majority of these "restaurants" are quick, low cost, low quality establishments that somehow manage to engage enough patrons to stay open. Even the higher end places offer little difference from one another, using the same ten ingredients in five different ways only of better quality and making them look prettier or maybe shaving some truffles on top to seem extraordinary. Not to mention how much of it is grossly Americanized, completely coated in sauce to cover any real texture or independent flavor, or so coated in oil and grease (especially the Asian foods) that it slides past your tongue too fast to actually taste it.
I know that these two have probably taken over considering that the culinary history of the top ancestral demographics in this town are less than reputable, I mean come on, German and Irish food? Are they ever really going to take root anywhere other than Germany or Ireland? Only after lots of alcohol to numb the taste buds and coat the gut. But honestly people, can we please stop being herded like sheep from identical restaurant to identical restaurant? We have already placed MacDonald's on the top of our food pedestal, and don't deny that we have, they didn't get to be that big without our help, and things will not get any different until we decide to change ourselves. Until we can begin to think for ourselves and forage for something really new, Baah-baah, eat that corn!