Industrial/Modern Era Starts

I figure most everybody here plays Ancient starts, but once in a while I like a late start to change things up. Couple questions about how to deal with the downside...

1. City specialization: With National Epic unavailable, how do you go about putting together your GP Farm? Do you just pick a high-food spot like normal, run lots of specialists like normal, and accept the fact that it's only gonna be half as good?

2. Insanely expensive Settlers: In a Modern start (Industrial too I think) you start with 3 settlers, but if you wanna build any more they cost about as much as a Wonder. I'm sure the AI (unless they're IMP) has this same handicap, but how do you expand at a decent pace?

Thanks!