It's simple; scenes are expensive. You need space to have a scene, you need a business for that scene/space, and that business needs to be profitable enough to pay for rent and fair wages while also supporting the scene/community.

One of the biggest things I saw in my work travels was how low vs high COL affects availability of scenes and community. Where in low cost cities like Pittsburgh and Rochester you have budding communities and scenes, but in places like Boston and NYC, those same type of scenes can't compete. So they shrink or disappear entirely, to be replaced by name brand chains/companies.