For as long as i can remember Liberty has been... well Liberty. Discussions like this have been had literally hundreds of times because of two things:
Liberty is a hotbed of activity
Liberty is chaotic
In my opinion it's because it's the gameplay sphere every newbie encounters first. Only after they've ground out enough dollar for a BC do they start to understand that activity isn't everything. If you moved Erie to rheinland i honestly believe the phenomenon would go with it. Thing is Erie has to go somewhere, it's just tough luck for Liberty in that regard.
Also PvP isn't everything. Alot of players like myself are content generating RP activities and playing the game that way.