Region Not Sharing Resources / Status Checks between cities

First: When I did get to play, the game is beautiful. Errors? sure. Issues? You bet.  But I'll be darned, it's beautiful.

My Point: I am getting pretty far along, and have multiple cities now. I have noticed no option to purposely send/share resources (Like Alloy, Plastic, Coal, etc) on a consistant basis to another city besides Gifting, which seems often broken and tedious.

Example 1: City A is a coal mining specialized city and has a large stock pile of coal, Trade Depots with the 'Use Locally" option checked, Trade Ports with the "Use Locally" option checked, Delivery Trucks and is connected via Highway, Rail and Sea.  City B has a Coal Plant. 

Issue: City A cannot send/sell/provide coal to City B's coal plant. City B MUST purchase off of the Global Market, despite a LARGE reservior of Coal near by.

Example 2: City A is Electric Specalized, has three processor plants and requires a constant stream of resources. City B is Oil Specialized and City C is Metal Specialized.  Both Cities B and C have large stockpiles of their respective needed resources. (Plastic and Alloy) Both Cities B and C have Trade Depots, Trade Ports, Delivery Trucks and are connected via Highway, Rail and Sea.  

Issue: City A must still get it's Plastic and Alloy from either a 'rapidly over run' Recycling plant or import from the Global Market despite nearby available "LOCAL" resources with the "Use Locally" option checked. City A requires resouces on an hourly basis, Gifting is not a viable option.

Now I understand that 'trade' is possibly disabled at the moment, but I've been playing before it was disabled AND in both Betas and have not seen resources being, at the very least, sold between cities much less actually traded. 

(http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/UPDATE-Server-Update-and-Deploy/m-p/626036/highlight/true#M10993)

Has anyone actually seen resources being shared between cities in the same region besides Gifting? Did I just miss it happening before the lock out? Does anyone have actual proof of it happening, or a developer blog, FAQ, SOMEWHERE where they've mentioned that this is possible?

***IF NOT... It is ridiculous that it isn't currently in the game. If and when this community gets up and playing, I'd raise hell if I were you to get this one in. 

With all of the people raging about the broken servers, I wonder if anyone with read this.

I have been able to play for the last few hours, and have built two cities, one industrial, mining coal and ore, and one gambling city with heavy residential. The goal is obviously to get those residents to commute to my industrial city and get  jobs. Unfortunately nobody is commuting, and my industrial city has taken a slide down the tubes. All the buildings are getting abandoned due to no workers, and im no longer able to sustain the city.

Now I know there are enough residents able to head over there and work, but they simply wont... has Commuting been broken in addition to cheetah speed?

I think so, I've observed the exact same thing.

Have you created agreements with your connected, adjacent towns to supply workers?

I don't think inter city transactions are working well or at all.

I have the same problem, and how do you make the agreement?

Great work approvals seem to be turned off too.

One of the things I realized is that you need to add on the Utilties and possibly Transportation offices to City Hall.  If you read through some of the descriptions for the different City Hall addons it mentions activating them for the region.

However even after doing that, I can't get water to flow from one city to another (I see the blue arror going from the selling city to the purchasing city).  Apparently some people do get some to flow but it seems to be capped.

I cant seem to get any new residents in my old Region, i can get water and Power from my other cities but no new residents.

The city hall offices wont share across my city's and its pissing me off