Yes.
For a start, there is no "Neighbourhood View" or "Lot View" anymore. What happens now is that the neighbourhood is mostly open, so there are no loading times when going between lots, which means you can now see your sims going to a lot.
There are now push-bikes in the game, and a bigger selection of cars
There is A LOT more furniture to place around your home, and a lot more clothes for your sims to wear. You can also edit their shoes now (NO MORE SANDALS).
Sims now have 'cell' phones.
There are no longer Aspiration Meters. Instead, there is a mood-meter. When the mood-meter is high, it adds Lifetime Reward Points which can be spent on rewards.
Every sim can have up to 4 wishes at one time. These are similar to wants only you do have the option to get rid of a wish if you dont want it.
Each sim can be given up to 5 traits, which can be good or bad. These influence your sims wishes, their mood elevators and how they react to other people.
You can now change the colours of clothing and objects on the lot using the entire colour palatte so you can get furniture to match (More or less).
They've also added many other things from all the expansion packs of the Sims 2