I love these lists from magazines. There are always some mediocre cities and then some holes that they pick because they have low costs of living. I also like how they frame this particular article around COVID as the reason thousands will be fleeing big cities. Yeah, sure. That will be a more overriding motivator than the rioting social justice cultural warriors. Right.
If you want to escape that crap, avoid Madison, Omaha, Lincoln, Iowa City, Lansing (how did that make any "best" list?), any colllege town.
From my neck of the woods: La Crosse is very nice, but a college town, and probably the second biggest SJW campus, after Madison. Wausau is nice, only an hour from the Northwoods. Green Bay is kind of a hole, at least by Upper Midwestern standards. In Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Florida, it would be a quaint town.
Obviously, Logan, Utah rocks. Still relatively close to Salt Lake, though. If you really want to get away from the madness in our cities and go to a place where there is zero chance of it spreading there, Bismarck would be a good choice. Super clean, low crime, affordable housing, still a strong economy, within three hours of the Badlands and within six or seven hours of the mountains. Big enough population that it has all the amenities. Oh, and, best of all, 75 mph speed limit on the interstate and 65 mph limit on all two-lane highways. I got a ticket there once for going ten over. It was $20. Nice.