You have no afterlife

Elves in the Forgotten Realms are barred from their afterlife because they betrayed their primary god Corellon by taking set forms, instead of staying flexible shapeshifters like they were intended.

Until he deems it time to forgive them, they are barred from ever entering their afterlive, and instead they reincarnate into new Elven forms after contemplating their failures for a while after death under the guidance of the other Elven gods. This is where the elven 'trance' or 'Remembrance' as they call it comes into play. During a trance, the elf relives events from their own life. But before their adulthood, and after they've reached their elder years, their trances instead allow them to relive their lives in Elven paradise. (Page 36, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes)

This, of course, creates a strong longing for the Elven paradise, which is where Evermeet comes in. Evermeet is a piece of the Elven heavens that was ripped out of their afterlife by strong elven magic and placed on Faerun. This act nearly destroyed Faerun, and only succeeded because the Elven gods intervened at the last moment to make the ritual succeed.

Evermeet, therefore, is the best next thing you have after actual heaven. Elves who are near death long to go there because it reminds them of a time when their souls were actually allowed into the Elven afterlife. But once they die, their soul is reincarnated into a new Elf.

If you want to truly learn more about Elves, I can recommend Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. It has a lot of lore about the Elves, their ancient wars and includes the information I've just described in far more detail.

Given that this is a lore question, and not a specifically 5e one, I would strongly recommend the 2e product Forgotten Realms Adventures, as it has a section on 24 cities of the Heartlands with exactly the kind of information you are asking for. The catch with it is that a lot of the listed characters there are now dead (if you are playing past the Second Sundering). But even then, in terms of the social structures, most of the data are still remarkably intact. For each city in the FRA, the following information is provided: Who rules, who really rules behind the scenes, population, major products, armed forces, notable wizards, notable churches, notable rogues' and thieves' guilds, equipment shops, adventurer's quarters (lodging), important characters, important features in town, local lore and finally a small map.

As for the 3e, FR Campaign Setting (FRCS) is excellent. At 320 pages and with a small font, it is one of the most information packed D&D books ever published. (It received the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game Supplement of 2001.) It provides a decent amount of information on the cities, but not in the itemized format of FRA. Instead it has data on regions/countries and cities are given as individual paragraphs. So it covers a larger geography (significantly larger than FRA, or 5e Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide), but provides somewhat less detailed data on particular cities. One excellent thing in FRCS3e is a map of trade between regions.

The 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (FRCG) is structured in the same way as FRCS. However it lacks the level of detail FRCS provides. The 4e "Points of Light" philosophy is arguably reflected onto FRCG and the particular data on the cities are very limited. Moreover, 5e D&D (and the in-game mechanics of the Second Sundering) has mostly returned the setting to pretty much how it was in 2e/3e.

Finally, the 5e sourcebook Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (SCAG) has partially returned to the style of FRA (cities are discussed explicitly), with a mix of FRCS3e. It covers more limited geography than FRCS3e, and the data on the cities is less organized than FRA (and some data are missing). Its main pro is that it happens to be the most recent published material. If one did not care about editions, FRCS3e and FRA are more suited to answer the question you have asked.

PS: Both FRA and FRCS3e are available as watermarked pdf downloads that you can buy on the web for less than half the price of SCAG.