Does a sustainable city count as sustainable if it relies on trade? Even if a city can support itself, there are always resources that it will not have. Most likely, the resources brought in would be convenient but not necessary, so the city could still survive on its own, but would beginning to rely on commerce with other cities threaten a city’s ability to sustain itself indefinitely?

Personally, I think that even in a sustainable city, trade is important. Although the residents of a sustainable city would be perfectly capable of surviving with only the resources they have, it would be advantageous for them to have access to extra materials and methods of maintaining the sustainability of their home.

But if one of the other places trading resources with the sustainable city was unable to continue, would it have a negative effect on the residents? They would still be able to live on what they had inside their city, but would the benefits of trade disrupt the sustainability of the city in question?

I do think that in order to have a truly sustainable city they would have to disconnect from trading with cities far away. While this would make life a little bit harder, over all it would help out the cities carbon footprint massively. This transition from trading all the time to being at a complete stand still would take a massive impact on the cities economy though. My suggestion for this transition is to first focus in on what jobs are only involving the city in question, moving more and more people into these positions. After a while the city would be able to slow down trade bit by bit to accommodate the economic downfall.

However, there are other ways to make trading more Eco-friendly without cutting it out of the picture all together. This could be through the way they get to the location, to the way they are grown and managed. So if a city cant cut out trading completely there are other solutions to lower there carbon footprint.

I think that we have seen in the past how the downfall of a country's trade partner has affected the country and it can seriously hurt the economy. Whether or not a country can survive on what it has within it's borders, I still think trade is important because being sustainable does not just mean surviving, it means to thrive. Without contact or trade with the outside world, ideas and cultures would not be spread causing a lack in diversity and a lack in ideas. Although it may cut down the carbon footprint, an isolated city would not learn new technological advances that would help make up for the increase of carbon created by trade.

Trade should not be the main source of revenue for our country because if the other country's economy falls, then so will we. However, it still needs to be there in order to spread ideas and cultures allowing all countries to thrive.

Through my thoughts I think that we have seen in the past how the huge downfall of a country's trade partner has affected the country and it can seriously hurt the economy. I think without contact or trade with the outside world, ideas and cultures would not be spread causing a lack in diversity and a lack in ideas. I also think whether or not a country can survive on what it has within it's borders, but I still think trade is important because being sustainable does not just mean surviving, it could mean to thrive.  Although it might cut down the carbon footprint, the isolated city would not learn new technological advances that would help make up for the increase of carbon created by trade. Trade should also not be a main source of revenue for our country that is the most important.

I agree that for a city to be sustainable there needs to be a balance between trade and locally manufactured items. If all goods needed in a city are produced within its walls or general vicinity, then that place's resources would become drastically depleted and then trade would become heavily depended upon to compensate. On the flip side, with too much trade comes the usage of too many fossil fuels and cheap labor, which is something that I see America is guilty of and should work towards changing in the future. It's a fine line between the two, but generally it seems like the latter is what is mainly happening in our world. I think that if all cities could achieve sustainability through mixing trade with investments in locally made products, there would be a far better circulation in all of the world's economies, supporting businesses both small and large, as we all a better use of resources in a wider range of areas.