Combat Zone

...is any area designated by the local government as inaccessible by law enforcement agencies.

This translates into a customary "don't ask, don't tell", where the cops and corpos won't bother the punks and gangers as long as their violence doesn't spill onto the streets of the Controlled Zones.

Usually, these neighborhoods are quite volatile, with residents dying on the daily, facing protection rackets and unstable housing conditions. Many of the buildings within these Zones are abandoned or even ruined, although there exist efforts to reconstruct and maintain stable bastions of safety. These are few and far between, as it takes only a couple of boosters to ruin their security from within.

Detroit's Combat Zone was the first to be walled off completely and turned into a de jure minimum security prison.

South Night City is Night City's own Combat Zone, spanning a large portion of the peninsula and even bordering the City Center.