disagree. do you properly explore? There are multiple named NPCs throughout the city who you can talk to for some lore/info and get quests.
There's a couple - I met the prissy guy in the coffee shop too, who I quite liked.
But compare with the likes of Skyrim or Fo3. Off the top of my head, in the very first towns you reach in each game (Riverwood and Megaton):
Riverwood immediately has you encounter Sven, who approaches you and gives you a quest that involves two other residents, Faendal and Camilla. By going to find Camilla, you're immediately put on to the Bleak Falls Barrow quest. Walking a little further down the street and you'll meet Gerdur, who is the quasi-mayor and has some interesting stuff to say. She'll tell you about the mill where you can meet Hod and also cut wood for money (not that there's any good reason to). You then walk over to the inn where you meet the drunkard (forgot his name) and head inside to meet Delphine, who's a major character. You're also led to Riverwood by Stormcloak guy or Hadvar, who will introduce you to several other NPCs. That's just Riverwood - Whiterun, the first big town, is
massive in terms of content.
Megaton has you immediately approached by Simms, who can tell you a lot of lore, can help you in the main quest, and can give you the disarm-the-nuke quest. On the path down to the nuke, you'll encounter the leaking pipes, which puts you onto the miniquest to repair them all and visit the water treatment plant. The disarm-the-nuke quest has you encounter the atom cult, while following Simms' advice to go to the bar has you meet Gob, Moriarty, Lucy, and Burke, all of whom give you additional quests. You'll also wind up in the shop where you'll meet Moira, who gives you a major quest, and the clinic, where you can get a tip about the android quest.
In Riverwood and Megaton, you couldn't remove any NPC or building without losing something. Even minor characters, like Jenny at the food stall in Megaton, have little quests associated with them (she's got a crush on the ex-raider guy at the bar, I think, and her brother's on drugs, which you can stage an intervention for). In Jemison in Starfield, though, you could remove literally 95% of the NPCs and about 90% of the worldspace without losing any actual content, and the scant amount of content you'd be left with would be pretty weak compared to previous Beth games.
