Quite a few reasons, but to list a few big ones in broad strokes, and focusing on the even earlier days of the colonies:

The New England colonies mostly had royal charters granting them broad control over their territories, while the Chesapeake was more tightly controlled by the crown and those closely affiliated with it. The leadership of the Chesapeake colonies could be corrupt and exploitative, and led to occasional unrest and antagonism against the leadership of the colony. Someone like Governor Berkeley, who contributed to unrest in the Chesapeake by giving much of the best land to his cronies and the local elite and taking large cuts for himself and for the king (essentially as kickbacks) while preventing many common freedmen to obtain good land, would never have been able to take such advantage of a New England colony.

The people who came to the Chesapeake came for opportunity without knowing fully what they were to expect. Many were even tricked into going, and then forced into indentured servitude. They were generally unskilled and unprepared for what was to come, and were there to seek what seemed to be a relatively achievable fortune, certainly when compared to their prospects in Britain. The Puritans in New England, by contrast, were able to pay their way across the Atlantic, had migrated in order to create a more perfect social/religious order, and believed in the primacy of the social order and holy purpose of hard work.

As a result, New England was pretty close to gender balanced, as Puritans of both genders felt the call to move to America, whereas in the early days of the Chesapeake the population was almost exclusively male. In 1650, New England had an adult male:female ratio of about 3:2, while the Chesapeake colonies had a corresponding ratio of 4:1. This allowed for much quicker population growth in New England.

None of this would likely have been particularly important, though, except that the crops grown and industries developed in New England were less lucrative and easier to grow than those in the Chesapeake, and in many cases were also quite similar to the crops already grown in England. Farmers in the Chesapeake grew tobacco, much in demand in Europe and not easily grown there. As such, there was a much more active interest taken in the colonies in the Chesapeake.

Edited for content, a little. Did a little brushing up on my memory and corrected errors.