It's not that they "could only" do that, it's that their primary life wasn't full of cultural entertainment as the comment made it sound. They came to the citie

It's not that they "could only" do that, it's that their primary life wasn't full of cultural entertainment as the comment made it sound. They came to the cities looking for work and and opportunity, not from a late-20th-century sense of "small town life isn't interesting enough". The life described is one of privilege, not of the lower classes. It's pubs vs operas.