 What is a potential risk of cities seceding from their nation-states?
What cities in the post-Brexit era could learn from a 14th-century trading bloc As you fly from the country now known as Germany to Britain, the coastal geography of northern European cities gently unfurls. By their nature cities along coasts and rivers developed so they could be open to trade with each other. It could point us towards new relationships between progressive city dwellers in a world that otherwise seems to be putting the brakes on modernity. Yet look at any city of Mitteleuropa and you'll see the many different names it has had as borders and regimes have shifted with the sands of time. "So it is not unrealistic to think of cities as discrete entities that compete and collaborate with each other, independently from the states to which they belong."
 Ideological differences between city and rural dwellers could grow farther and farther apart.
 Rural areas may see a rapid economic decline.  Ideological differences between city and rural dwellers could grow farther and farther apart.  A food shortage could arise if the rural areas refuse to trade with the city that seceded.  Rural and city dwellers may decide to engage in warfare.