Sorry that you are so dispirited. If you can bear a suggestion, perhaps release many different apps/sites branded with the city name. Like, "Grooovy NYC". Or,

Sorry that you are so dispirited. If you can bear a suggestion, perhaps release many different apps/sites branded with the city name. Like, "Grooovy NYC". Or, perhaps even better, try a lot of apps/sites each branded with the name of a university. Social sites, as far as I can tell, need small "nucleation" points. In many cases it is the developers' friends and family. But in your case that won't work, you need a seed audience that also shares a schedule.