Okay so what you're doing is contradicting the objective advantages/benefits of living near the epicenter of a specific industry with a purely anecdotal example of 10+ years experience in jobs from said epicenter, with the expendable income to travel (domestic/international) for in-person meetings, then defining networking to a disingenuously generalization because it reinforces your opinion.

What if I were to tell you that you can make meaningful relationships and connections w/o "brown nosing/servicing" and its easier to do so in the center of a specific industry?