Recommendation for neighborhoods

As you like walk-able neighborhood, I'd recommend Dist 2 or 7 as they were designed with more green outer space and well-cultivated landscape in comparison with urban districts. Just one problem is that these 2 districts during rainy season suffer from floods very harshly due to unqualified sewage service. Wish you luck!

Personally I prefer Thao Dien in D2.  It has a feel of small town with walkable distances to shops, restaurants, convenient stores, western and local foods, coffee shops and fresher air.  D7 was also on my list but chose TD instead.

Drop me a line if you want to know more.

Difficult to generalize about D2 and D7 as most expats live in developed neighborhoods that are just a fraction of the area of these very large districts. Even D1 encompasses all sorts of neighborhoods.

D1 downtown (roughly north of Hàm Nghi, east of Lý Tự Trọng, use google maps) is the most urban, busy, noisy you are used to. There are also fancy towers very close in D4 along the canal in walking distance.

Yoda is right about Thao Dien, it is a trendy village on the river, upscale shops, variety of foreign restaurants, no sidewalks, quiet, full of expats.

My favorite is the part of D7 Phu My Hung north of the Nguyen Van Linh superhighway up to the creek. Compact and walkable, many cafes, similar to a US suburb, yet less variety in restos and housing from Thao Dien. Greater PMH is more spread out though, below the highway and over to the Crescent Lake neighborhoods, largely residential, very clean, I wouldn't say walkable, but many housing options.