Previously, only industrial areas have been able to specialize in the use of certain raw materials to bring even more profit to the city. Unlike industrial specializations, the new commercial specializations are not related to natural resources. The leisure specialization is available anywhere, but offers the challenge of increased traffic during the night, higher crime rate and noise pollution rate. Leisure areas should have good public transportation connections to allows citizens arrive and leave with ease. Leisure areas are the perfect companion for the day and night cycle: specific areas that are most desirable locations during the night, so it is easy to choose where to have the most night time activity and anticipate the rush of people during the night. Creating public transportation lines to serve leisure areas is a good choice, and you can even have the lines be inactive during the day to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.
Another way for commercial area to specialize is to promote tourism. For tourism to flourish, hotels are very much needed, but also restaurants and souvenir shops that cater to visitors. To complete the tourist or leisure areas, you can place entertainment venues right on the waterfront. How about a pier for fishing tours or a marina for private jets? Not only do these buildings appeal to tourists, they also make for a nicer, smooth transitions between the water and land. No more ugly rocky cliffs on the waterfront, but nice buildings that bring income to the city! Tourism used to be called the Beach specialization, but this has since changed. Tourism works like any other specialization and can be used anywhere on the map, not just shore areas.
To make sure shorelines can be utilized, we have made new park-type buildings that snap to the waterfront to finish in nicely. They cater to both citizens and tourists, making everyone in the city happier. We felt this change allows for more flexibility on the use of shoreline buildings and makes the tourism specialization work better, as it is no longer limited to shores. Having the specialization concentrate on shore areas would have meant that maps with only a little shoreline would not have been able to utilize the specialization much. Modders can also create new shoreline buildings more freely, as they are not limited to buildings within a certain specialization, but can do all kinds of buildings that are free for users to place.
Leisure areas draw in most citizens during the night. Tourist areas are most active during the day. While leisure areas are very profitable, they do have a downside: the noise pollution caused during the night can upset people if there are residential areas nearby. One strategy is to place leisure areas a bit further from the city center, or even have your own little Las Vegas for them on the map. This way the noise pollution does not reach residential areas. To handle the traffic to and from the leisure areas, public transportation can be very handy if you find your streets crowded with vehicles. Public transport lines can be set to be active during the night, day or both, so it is easy to control when the lines to the leisure area become active. Build extra lines for the busy night time, but don't have them go during the day to save some money.
Taxis also play into handling the new specialized areas. As tourists want to visit the tourist areas easily, having a good fleet of taxi cab standing by makes their life a lot easier. Taxis do not use lines, they receive requests from tourists and citizens and travel automatically to pick the customers up. If a taxi does not have a new customer in line, it will go to the nearest taxi stand to wait for a call if theres still work shift left. At the end of the shift taxis return to their depots to receive maintenance. This makes taxis very flexible and they can help out a lot when you want to make sure tourists and citizens without cars can easily access all parts of your city.
Both new specializations have a higher tax income than basic commercial area, but produce more noise pollution and have a higher crime rate. So be sure to plan carefully when allowing districts to specialize, otherwise citizens might feel uncomfortable!
