Several 2d scenes on screen

What would be the best way to handle having several 2d "scenes" happening on screen at the same time.

Say for example a civilization strategy game where you have the main 2d board, but you also want to have a live 2d display of the selected city in part of the screen that has details, animations, etc.

What would be the best way to structure this. could you have it as separate scenes? or would you just have it all in one scene, and keep the secondary (display of city) happen far away from the main scene stuff, and just keep a different camera over that stuff?