Oddly enough, except for colleges, I have never created a custom subhood. I just don't think of it.
But now that I
am thinking of it, it would be a lot easier to create something like a custom shopping district for a new neighborhood, rather than having to export and import story characters from one neighborhood to the next.
As far as I know, there is no difference at all between the main neighborhood and a shopping district or a downtown. Is that right?
F'rinstance, when I built the facilities on South Padre Island I had to duplicate all the teen stars from Happy Valley. If I had that to do over, I would have created a "2642" subneighborhood for Happy Valley.
I could also have made the Meat Market a shopping district of Happy Valley and had all the main characters available right there.
I wish there were an easy way to duplicate a neighborhood, people and all. That would have made 2642 a lot easier. I could have just changed the ages of the existing characters. As it is, I have child and teen versions of most of the stars running around my main neighborhood.