Newcastle anchors the Hunter — a university city with a large health workforce, which is exactly where its migrant communities have grown: doctors, nurses and postgraduate students who came for work or study and stayed for the housing and the coast.
Communities are small enough that much of the region's cultural life is shared across backgrounds, and most members keep one eye on Sydney, two hours south — matches across the two cities are routine, with the who-relocates question best asked early.
Newcastle's Indian community has grown around the university and the John Hunter health precinct — doctors, nurses, researchers and postgraduate students who stayed for the coast and the housing — with Diwali events and cricket leagues doing the community-building a bigger city leaves to suburbs.