Zoning in Milan in Cyberpunk Milan | World Anvil
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Zoning in Milan

The Milan Metropolitan Area is divided into three roughly circular concentric zones - the Red Zone, the Blue Zone, and the innermost Gold Zone. Access to these zones is tightly controlled, and the level of cleanliness, opulence, and safety rises with the level of exclusivity, surveillance and corporate control.  

Milan ID Cards

There are three levels of Milan ID. Red cards are allowed to travel, live and work anywhere in the Province of Milan outside of the actual Milan city limits, but cannot enter the city limits without a special pass. Blue cards are allowed to travel, live and work inside Milan’s outer ring, but cannot go into the Corporate Center without a special pass. Gold cards are allowed to travel, live and work anywhere within Milan, including within the Corporate Center. Gold cards are very expensive, costing several thousand euro per year, and are almost always purchased by corporations for their employees.   Cards can be printed picture ID cards with swipe chips, or they can be embedded subdermal chips which are updated using a special device. Gold cards are never actually cards, they are always chips, but they are still referred to as “cards.”   Red cards do not require a background check, but blue and gold cards do, at increasing levels of stringency. All ID cards require a full cybernetics scan before issuance, which will reveal illegal enhancements and also if the person has been through cybertherapy. The former will prompt arrest; the latter will simply be noted on the ID and added to the publicly available registry.  

The Red Zone

Consisting of all of the greater Milan area outside of the city limits of Milan itself, the Red Zone ranges from middle-class to impoverished, from densely populated suburbs to industrial areas to farming communities. The majority of the residents are immigrants, and the vast majority are non-corporate.   Entrance into the Red Zone is loosely monitored at major roadways, but it's not taken particularly seriously. It is possible to make a living in the Red Zone without obtaining a Milan ID, though getting one does make life much easier, since all of the area's public and social services require one, and many employers do as well.  

The Red-Blue Border

The area within a few miles of the red-blue border was ravaged by corporate militarization in the 2010's and early 2020's. The militarized zone eventually solidified into a formal border, surrounded by a guarded wall.   The "wall" is actually two walls, one on the red side and one on the blue side, with a strip of no-man's land between them that varies in width from a couple hundred feet to over a mile. The red-side wall is about 4 meters high and topped with barbed wire, while the blue-side wall is more like 6 meters high, and topped with not only barbed wire, but also a narrow walking path which is patrolled by guards at regular intervals. Both walls are pierced with guarded checkpoints at major roadways, allowing authorized vehicles tho pass through.  

The Blue Zone

Cleaner, more affluent, and more monitored than the Red Zone, the Blue Zone generally houses Milan's upper-middle to upper class citizens. The majority of businesses and a good number of the homes have some sort of security system, generally with cameras and alarms at minimum but sometimes also including ID scanners or other equipment. These security systems are run by a host of competing private security firms, but it's an unspoken understanding that the government and some of the largest corporations can access data from any of these systems at any time.   Many residents of the Blue Zone live and work there and never have much reason to leave, but a sizable majority of them work in the Gold Zone, in the corporate center. Workers who commute into the Gold Zone are given timed access based on their schedules of work, which often means running late equates to being denied access.  

The Blue-Gold Border

The party has not seen the blue-gold border wall, but the rumor is that it is much taller and MUCH more heavily secured than the red-blue border.  

The Gold Zone

The smallest, cleanest, richest, and most heavily secured zone is home to Milan's wealthiest, post powerful, most influential individuals, a not inconsiderable number of which are actually corporations rather than people. Supported by the worker bees of the Blue Zone, those that actually live in the Gold Zone are the elite of Milan.   It is rumored that the Gold Zone is under constant and complete surveillance, that no one inside so much as breathes without the government and at least three corporations knowing about it.  

Milan Zoning Map

The map of Milan below shows the three zones, and which settlements are within the borders of which.
Milan in 2032.

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