[ahn]

Based on my experience I think that's easily explained by population density, amount of space available per capita, etc. If anything I see hackeresque spirit as more pronounced in rural areas. They aren't forced by necessity into a shared space like those in the city though, and maybe they don't consider the benefits of a shared space being that important.

The Europe situation seems more interesting. Look at the numbers(per capita) for The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and then France. The first three have many hacker spaces per capita. France is much lower. I'd expect that(from past experience), but don't have any good ideas about why it is.