RE Culture:
How bout a thriving live music scene of the type you're into, hearing a popular speaker (free or pay), theater, festivals for the subgroups you're into (veg fests, local brew fesst and so on), cultural specific events (we do a lot of Polish but have also been to Indian and others), educational events for kids, volunteer orgs for causes you're into (MTB trailwork for me!), professional and even amateur sports, professional/networking groups and so on.
This isn't to say smaller places don't have some of this, but the level and variety definitely is ramped up in cities. Dunno why the sarcastic tone or needing to explain this stuff? But there it is. :D
Well! I always joke that I live in the most boring place in the world (but cheap!) but as a matter of fact, we have all of those things - music! food! festivals! kid events! networking! volunteer groups! We have a minor league baseball team, and also hockey, and if you are willing to drive an hour to Pittsburgh, you can see big league hockey. And football and baseball, but my dh and dd go to the hockey once or twice/year.
And I hear that there are loads of places to go dancing, even though that's not my thing - there's a lot of swing dancing, and there's a polka place, and lots of places just with bands.
I think it used to matter a lot more where you lived Before Internet. It was trickier to make connections, for one thing, and you were limited to local shopping. Now, you can find friends with a meetup group, and you can have anything delivered.