We love our Sims game and how we can make the life and surroundings area into a wonderful community or neighborhood. Let's all share what we have built or created within it.
I only play two neighborhood Pleasantview and my Custom neighborhood Shanghai is all Asians with all Asians Sims.
Here are the things I have there as follow: Feel free to share what you have in your Neighborhood.

1. Coffee Bar
2. Museum
3. Hair Salon
4. Night Clubs
5. Restaurants / Including High End
6. Shoes Designer / Boutique Store
7. Gas or Petrol Station / car repairs
8. Playland Fun (I originally got this fun idea from member and creator Joandsarah 77)
9. Ice Cream Store
10. Bakery Shop
11. Boutique Fashions
12. Butcher Meat shop
13. Buddha Temple
14. Community Park (everyone seems to hang out there the Elderly Sims love it)
15. Bowling Center
16. Ice Rink / Roller Skating rink
17. Citi Bank
18. Casino
19. Fishing Pond
20. Groceries Store
21. Karaoke Bar
22. Library
23. Laundromat
24. Musicians Music Place
25. Pets Shop
26. Spa / Gym
27. Game Center / Card playing or Pool Playing
28. Game Store / Buy games
29. Indoor Swimming pool / also outdoor
30. City Court House
31. Cemetery Crying their heart out.

Arundel of course is set in the medieval time (or so I like to think..) but it does have its' share of places to hang out at.

"Serf's up!" a community park with a fishing/swimming pond, with the addition of a outdoor roaster, children's playground equipment, a bowling lane, and a Maypole for those who like to dance.
Ice skating rink-available only in the winter.
The usual stores-coin trader, grocer, gift mart, clothing mercer
Open air market (only open in the spring, summer and fall),
Garden shop (ditto on open time)
Meeting hall (where you can lecture to your heart's content for money)
Children's playground
Teen hangout
Adult hangout with alcohol!
Ye olde 'do drop inn' for carnal and extramarital pursuits
Weddings to go-for those who don't want a big wedding.
Tournament/Jousting Exercise/Practice Lot
The King's Forest (said to be haunted)
The Italian Garden
Our Lady of Eternal Sorrow-official town church with graveyard.
Sacred Shrine
The Holy Spirit Wells-where miracles occur
The small fishing pond with an ancient spring hot tub.
The Larger fishing pond. (Arundel inhabitants love to fish, can you tell?)
The community bathhouse
Town Services where banking and other services are available.
Horse Lot: where you can ride horses for free!

Currently playing Strangetown and a Veronaville-Pleasantview-Strangetown megahood.

Strangetown doesn't have much. There are the pool and shops as in the start, plus a cemetery, a hot springs/natural park, a fishing hole next to the hot springs, and on the main strip, a sleazy motel, a sleazy nightclub, a coffeeshop, an alien-themed diner, and a car lot owned by Frances J. Worthington III. I did make over Downtown and transformed some lots. For instance, I made the Zen Botanical Gardens, a wedding venue in a park, a disco roller rink, a medieval-themed family restaurant, and an arcade that is a teen hangout.

In the megahood, Veronaville is considered the center of entertainment. It has the Montys' farm-to-table restaurant, the Summerdreams' night club, Capp Enterprises HQ, the Contessa Capp Memorial Gardens, the Veronaville Academy (a private school), a teen center, a pub, two shopping centers on either side of the canal, and a coffeeshop with live music. All of the original community lots were demolished.

Pleasantview has a public school where the Strangetown kids get bused, a mini-mall, a senior center, a fitness center owned by Daniel Pleasant, a clinic where Jennifer Burb and Don Lothario work, a public library, an office park where Mortimer Goth's campaign headquarters are located, and the Goth Science Labs. Near the trailer park, there is Gordon King's criminal hangout with all sorts of illicit activities and a flea market where you can buy many things including pets. I plan to build there a wedding chapel, a cemetery, a police station, the newspaper office, and a courthouse at some point. The only original lot remaining is the Woodland Park.

In this version of Strangetown, there is a large military base with a recruiting office for people who want to join up, the two original lots, and a sleazy motel where Chloe Curious works as an escort. I am not planning to add very many more lots to this Strangetown.

I think essential lots are a place to have weddings that aren't held at home, a place for teens to meet up, a restaurant for dates, a place where Sims can perform music for tips, a bar where singles can meet, clothes and food shopping, a public pool, a place to buy pets and pet supplies, and a place where seniors can gather. But I find it fun to try to come up with other kinds of lots related to what my Sims like to do.

My hood has a rather large number of community lots, because I love to send my sims out.
1. My fishing spot, Carlotta's Pond.
2. 7 Restaurants, varying from quite small and mainly used for breakfast, slightly upscale for fancy dinners, very nice for business lunches and diners too.
3. Shops (owned) - many sims in my hood run their own businesses, there are 19 in total, ranging from the hobby shops to shops selling specific items (e.g only lights).
4. Shops unowned: Clothing, books, grocery, convenience.
5. Art Gallery and an art park.
6. Library
7 4 Coffee/Tea lots
8.23 Bars/Pubs - each one has different things to do (one is a casino, one has karaoke, one has a piano for the piano man, etc).
9. Ice skating rink.
10. Roller skating rink.
11. Bowling alley
12. Music venue
13. Aquarium
14.Laundromat
15.Outdoor swimming pool.
16. Sport Park
17. 2 hotels in the main hood
18. A tea lot
19. A park with not much to do, sims play kicky bag and toss football and kids play tag, etc. There is a BBQ coffee and seating. It is a pretty park, though, and my sims seem to enjoy hanging out there.
20. Graveyard.
21. Church with a wedding venue

The hood I'm currently playing is being developed as I play, and has few lots currently. There are seven playable families, seven residential lots, ~120 characters including NPCs and townies and just seven community lots so far.

The community lots are:
Motel with laundrette (for dirty laundry )
Beach
Diner
Shop
Park
Swimming pool (also on a beach)
Coffee shop

It looks like this so far (click thumbnail):


I'm getting some good ideas for future lots to build from this thread!

Nice map, @simsample

Thank you @Justpetro ! It's one I made very quickly, I'll have to upload it! (I have a huuuuge pile of stuff to upload, it's just that I keep playing the game and making more instead of getting round to actually uploading it all... )

My internal harddrive died recently due to my laptop falling from my bed, so I lost anything that was pre-2021. I decided to start completely fresh with a new medieval fantasy neighborhood.
So far I have built the royal stables as well as placed the cemeteries as the only community lots. I plan to add a park on the royal island as well.
Over on the mainland, it will mostly be home businesses for now but eventually I plan to extend it to community lots. Right now I'm working on and planning for:
- bakery
- confectionary/chocolate store
- fisherman
- farm shop (anything that grows on trees and plants)
- winery/brewery
- horse market
- bee keeper
- basket maker
- flower shop
- candle shop
- wood working shop
- Casket maker
- pet store
- general grocery store
- seamstress + jeweller + hairdresser (I think this is something I should combine into one)
- public pool
- lake/park/beach
- restaurant
- pharmacy/potion shop

I'm probably forgetting something but those are my brainstormed ideas so far.

Grocery Store/Pet store/Appliance store - "Landgraab's Supa-Save"
Mexican restaurant - "The Rapid Phoenix"
Community pool - "La Piscina Aquatics Centre"
Used car dealership - "Midnight Auto"
Bar & Grill - "Red Fist tavern"
Community garden - "Pomona Gardens"
Small park/plaza - "Hecuva Plaza"
Clothing store - "Sloppy Seconds Thrift Shop"
An unused OFB business - "379 Babybat Highway"

What a great time to catch this topic! Excuse me while I spend 3 hours writing out a whole tour of just one of my down towns in my custom hood to answer your question of what is in that community structure and culture-wise.

For the curious, I posted my response with credit back to this thread in my old neighborhood thread with lots of pretty pics so as not to clog this one.

@Charmful Your Community "Memosa Bay" is just wonderful so beautiful from your picture of the city thanks for sharing.