: I don't think, as a whole, that the folk scene in some of the larger
: cities is rich enough to offset the higher cost of living

Factor in transport, and a village doesn't end up any cheaper. Particularly since even the deadest large city will have more folk events than even the liveliest village. The village I live in (Newtongrange, in Midlothian just outside Edinburgh) has folk-related events about three times a week during the winter, which is unusually good for a place of its size - but Edinburgh itself has more than ten times that, and makes a far better hub for getting to villages in the Lothians by public transport. Bus routes tend to be radial; it's much easier for me to get to something in Edinburgh than to another part of Midlothian, and easier for somebody in Edinburgh to get to something in Tranent or Loanhead than it is for me, even though I live nearer both of them.

If doing an intensive study of the people who go to a local event once weekly (at the most) is what you're after, then settling in a village would be fine. Very few villages have more than that, and public transport in the UK is of wildly uneven coverage (good here in the Lothians, poor in Fife and the Borders, all but nonexistent around Bristol and Norfolk) so in much of the country the village you were living in would be the only one you'd get to research.