Here is a test that takes ten minutes and tells you everything: walk the main street of your neighborhood at 7 PM on a weeknight. If it is full — not crowded, but full of locals walking dogs, doing groceries, picking up kids, queuing at the wine shop, lingering outside cafés — you are in a real neighborhood and it will be a great trip. If the street is empty, you are in a tourist zone or a business district and you should probably move hotels.
The Evening Walk Rule works because it captures something hard to fake: the rhythm of people who actually live somewhere. Tourists shop in the morning and eat dinner from 8 PM. Office workers go home by 6:30 PM. Locals are out at 7 PM precisely because their day is winding down and the neighborhood is their living room.
Examples of neighborhoods that pass the test on any weeknight: Le Marais (Paris), Trastevere (Rome), Vesterbro (Copenhagen), Kreuzberg (Berlin), Roma Norte (Mexico City), Williamsburg (Brooklyn), Nimmanhaemin (Chiang Mai), Yeonnam-dong (Seoul), Bandra (Mumbai), El Born (Barcelona).
Examples of neighborhoods that fail the test: Las Vegas Strip, Times Square, Singapore’s Marina Bay, Dubai International Financial Centre, the City of London after work hours. Beautiful, sometimes spectacular — but lifeless when the workers and tourists go home.