World building is much easier with rules and background material than starting anew in a “reboosting”.
Ehhhhhhh… there are pluses and minuses.
Everyone has “pluses and minuses”. The G5 is in the same world as the G4, only at least a thousand years later. A thousand years is a lot, when Equestria was still young, there were many cities that did not exist long in Twilight`s time, and political and cultural conditions changed over time - remember what happened Rockhoof, his people disappeared. Probably only half to two thirds of Equestria from the Hasbro map had not been explored, and the movie showed that the Bridlewood, Zephyr Heights and Maretime Bay may have existed in the G4 as travel sites. The airship station, which had early housed hot air balloons, revealed that Zephyr Heights was a suburb around a regional air traffic for residents of Canterlot - Bridlewood and Maretime Bay were little more than resort towns.
When it was thought that the G4 world could continue in the G5 with very different political and cultural conditions, Twilight had ruled in an empire with a lot of migration as seen in the last episode of G4 - and the license plate on Sprout`s robot monster shows twelve stars. As meant there are 12 states where there was only one state.
In our own world, a thousand years is so fundamentally different, that it is like two separate worlds, none of the nations of the world today have existed for so long without changing their own character. Not even people. When the G4 took place - there were many ruins and much more from a thousand years before, as when Celestia and Luna were young probably 1,400 to 1,100 years ago. Canterlot did not exist in the G4 according to the TV series until the Nightmare Moon was expelled to the moon. With one exception, it is believed by Canterlot either did not exist or was an insignificant unicorn town until Celestia moved there from Everfree. When Ponyville was founded, she gave settlers permission because the land was hers. No place of residence is without an urban community.
In short; everyone transforms into the unrecognizable when it has been so long.