How to Make a City Feel Real Without Overplanning

Long time listener, relatively new player, my DM has recently expressed that he only DMS so that he can play because no one else wants to miss being a PC. No idea how to make a town or settlement feel real or lived in without over planning and creating dozens of background and PCs. Any advice on me? I mean, this winds back around to like just describing the landscape a little bit. It's like you just need like one or two kind of nice chunky details.