Quoted from pbu:

I've watched our pinball scene improve dramatically over the last two years and it's been a hell of thing to see.
I live in a smaller city than Madison Wisconsin, Huntsville Alabama:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=madison+wisconsin+vs+huntsville+alabama
but we've got a great location for the 'serious' players:
https://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/9309-ronnie-raygun-s-huntsville-al-united-states
and great one for the 'casual' players:
https://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/8872-pints-amp-pixels-huntsville-al
Having operators with more games than sense (and I mean that in the nicest of ways guys) helps. However, I don't think it's been as simple as "if you build it they will come". I think what got this city to the point where it can support two locations with 32 games between them is, in a word, promotion. For example, one of the more memorable moments of promotion was 'Downtown Pinball'. Around six games were setup, on free play, in high foot traffic, high visibility, areas of downtown for a Friday and Saturday night. Picture an AC/DC blasting away on the sidewalk and you've got a pretty good idea of what was done. That night I heard person after person say that they didn't know pinball was still around and they were happy to learn where they could go play. Promoting, especially promoting in a creative way like that is a lot of work, and I can't even say with any certainty that it directly resulted in more regular players - but it sure raised awareness. Keep promoting long enough and hard enough and sooner or later you get a community.