Japan, Victoria, and Cities Skylines (2), home of Standardised Zoning. Lessons for Aotearoa?

In all the excitement in the Aotearoa Planning scene this week, it would the introduction of the National Standardised Zones or NSZs.

~1,145 zones up and down the Motu will shrink to around 17-20 (like Japan and Victoria) and apply nationwide. A Metropolitan Centre Zone in Auckland will be the same in Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin as an example! Another example; a Rural Production, or Rural Mixed Zone in the Waikato would be the same as Canterbury or Bay of Plenty

Standardised Zones for me personally are nothing new or unusual. Whether it be spending the last decade advocating for the standardised system Japan uses, or being familiar with the concept in Sim City, then Cities Skylines 1 and 2 by Colossal Order Ltd they all have their benefits.

For example no matter which map I use in #CitiesSkylines2 I will always be presented with the same standardised zones.

11 base zones,
Nine specialised industry classes (farming, cropping, cotton, forestry, and extraction),
The overlays from the Urban Content packs
- (think of these as specific urban precincts like Japan or French Mixed Use. Both found in the Residential Zone along with the “vanilla” Mixed Use).

In the end though the NSZ’s in CS2 give a certain amount of consistency. But they still allowed the spatial form to be very heterogeneous in design. As development is pretty much given liberty within the basic framework of the NSZ applied).

I have linked some videos below showcasing NSZ’s within CS2 in action. It showcases the freedom on the urban development applied giving that messy but heterogeneous look!

The pictures below also showcasing CS2’s standardised zones, and how the urban form has reacted to it.