Major Urban Expansion, Riding the Bus, and a Mini Review

Neo South Auckland recently passed the first milestone of 10,000 residents. In passing each population milestone we come to a pause and engage in some Spatial Planning 102 to prepare Neo South Auckland for the next phase of its development, 25,000 residents (spoiler at the bottom of the post). In this full two-hour video, we engage in some Spatial Planning, test out some new buses, and I leave a mini review towards the end on how I see Cities Skylines 2 at the moment and where its potential lies going forward!

Spatial Planning 102 – Major Urban Expansion in Neo South Auckland

Below are the chapters to the full video. Through the rest of 2023 and into early 2024 I will publish excerpts based on the chapter’s viewers might be interested in.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
0:00:50 Spatial Plan Introduction
0:01:30 Spatial Planning top end (Manukau City Centre)
0:02:13 Spatial Planning main City
0:03:17 Fixing the Congested Interchange
0:13:12 Giving a leg up to the less well off
0:14:12 Back to fixing the Interchange
0:31:30 Replacing residential post upgrade
0:34:00 Letting rip on the new interchange
0:36:00 shifting problems down the road
0:40:00 Next Up: Expansion Time
0:41:30 Expanding main industrial area
0:45:30 Preparing new residential area
1:02:30 Time to let rip (we unpause)
1:03:30 Recap
1:06:40 riding the bus through Mill Way
1:10:20 Riding the second bus through Mill Way and Penrose
1:16:50 Checking on the Zones
1:33:00 Riding the Trains
1:40:00 Back to rechecking the Zones
1:46:00 Recap 2
1:52:00 My Thoughts on Cities Skylines 2
1:58:10 Final Bus Ride back to Manukau City Centre (no commentary)

We also managed to open our very first light rail line. Yes, I can hear IRL Auckland crying in the corner already after losing whatever chances they had of getting one after years of mismanaging the planning process.

Riding the tram down a transit mall in Manukau City Centre

Riding the Tram while listening to the vibes:

The next milestone is 25,000 which and here comes the spoiler alert I completely shot by in offline game play and managed to nudge the 50,000-population milestone. This means the city has hit the first critical mass thresholds (internal growth makes up a major part of growth compared to migration) and a full review of existing systems needs to be done before expanding further (some of the reviews were done offline so will walk these through in the next video).