I'd much rather have cities and towns with hundreds of NPCs than the ones in Skyrim with 20. With larger cities, you can still have those 20 NPCs all with unique quests, among the other NPCs. If anything it would make searching for them a game play mechanic in its own right.
DO NOT TRY ARGUING WITH ME I DO NOT CARE - FUCK OFF.
witcherino has pretty pog cities
Cyberpunk 2077 has the best open world city design bar none IMO. For all of CDPR's many problems, they have an excellent level design and art team.