For now this page is going to contain a lot of colloquial language because, even I get tired of writing everything as if it were my thesis.
Time period
Generally speaking, it's somewhere around 5 years post the 7-hour war and combine takeover, technically it should be mid-2000s or early 2010s.
Geographical setting
Sophia, Bulgaria (City-17). As mentioned before, 7A is a Romanian bumpkin from Craiova and 7D is an ex-cop from Plovdiv.
The absolute state of the Combine Empire
For now it functions about as competently as a communist militia, but worse. Meaning that while the regime is oppressive, there are still a lot of under-the-table deals and agreements between parties. Citizens don't get regularly whacked with cattle prods yet or get their apartment buildings raided, the divide between transhumans/metrocops and civilians is less noticeable and more like something you'd expect from a place that's swarmed with military personel - weird and creepy but acceptable to an extent.
City life
About 60% of the population work physical jobs (mostly factories, repairs, hazmats, etc), 20% are MPs (mostly they just stand around like fucked up gargoyles), 15% are transhumans (no citadel yet so they have dedicated barracks), the other 5% is engineers, scientists and whatnot.
Services and stores (yes they do exist, you gotta spend your sterilized credits somewhere) are owned by the Combine Empire and offer basic foodstuffs, mostly unprocessed, they open around 2 PM to 5 PM, so when there's a shift change between morning and afternoon workers. Most of the fun stuff happens at the flea market around the abandoned warehouse behind block 13 on Sundays, you can get some old electronic equipment there.
Also bars exist because I said so, okay?
TL;DR
1980s Poland Balkan country simulator.