You're right about your chances of finding nice, happy women in those places being very low. Personally I find it very difficult to find nice, happy, secure, non-anxious women anywhere - they are a rare commodity. That is why I'm single. But some places I have met a higher concentration of them have been in running clubs, community volunteering events, outdoor fitness groups, running competitions (volunteering at aid stations etc), outdoor clubs (hiking, camping, etc). And also by going to various parties for friends and friends of friends though that's been very minimal compared to just meeting women through cold approach at the grocery store, on the street, or at the above types of events. There are issues with meeting women in social circle - usually the issue is that other women in the group will c0ck block you from dating new women who enter the group.
I will say that I've not had much luck with meetup.com groups, and very limited luck with other types of organized outdoor groups (think kayaking, paddle boarding, camping, etc). My personal experience has been those groups are frequented by overweight awkward people. I think part of the reason for this is that most normal, social people already have a good social network so they don't need to use meetup etc. But that's just my hunch. I do suspect that there are occasionally some attractive and socially normal women in those kinds of meetup and/or outdoor groups when women move to new areas for school or work and don't know anyone. They will form their social circle from scratch via co-workers and these kinds of meetups, and then will expand their social circle from there via the friends they've made. Bottom line on this: Try the meetups and FB groups but don't go into it expecting much.