I2C doesn't really care about cable length all that much. The thing to keep in mind is the interplay between bus capacitance, pullup strength, and drive strength.
A longer cable means more bus capacitance, which means with the same pullup resistor the signal rise time will be higher, which means you need to reduce the bus speed. A stronger pullup will reduce the rise time (allowing a higher bus speed), but each chip's driver has to be able to overpower the pullup too. If the pullup is too strong for the drivers, you end up being unable to send a zero.
In practice your cables can be quite long, you just have to run it at a lower speed. If you really want to push it, there's always transceivers like the PCA9615 which turn it into a differential bus.
A longer cable means more bus capacitance, which means with the same pullup resistor the signal rise time will be higher, which means you need to reduce the bus speed. A stronger pullup will reduce the rise time (allowing a higher bus speed), but each chip's driver has to be able to overpower the pullup too. If the pullup is too strong for the drivers, you end up being unable to send a zero.
In practice your cables can be quite long, you just have to run it at a lower speed. If you really want to push it, there's always transceivers like the PCA9615 which turn it into a differential bus.