求拍 argument228

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT228 - The following appeared in a newsletter from a political organization.

"In order to promote economic growth in the city, city residents should vote 'yes' on the state government's proposal to build a new expressway linking the outlying suburbs directly to the city center. A direct link to the city center will enable downtown businesses to receive deliveries more frequently, so that downtown retailers will no longer run out of stock and city manufacturers will not be affected by shortages of materials. Booming businesses will attract qualified workers from all over the state, workers who will be able to take advantage of the new expressway to commute to work in our city. In addition to these advantages, hundreds of workers will be employed to build the expressway, further stimulating the local economy!"

The author of this newsletter suggests that a new expressway linking the outlying suburbs to the city center be built, which, as he claimed, will enable more frequent deliveries to downtown businesses. He expected the booming businesses to attract more qualified workers who, because of the expressway, can commute easily to the city. He also pointed out that the huge number of workers employed to build the expressway would further stimulate the economy. Sound as it seems, the author's claim has been poorly supported by relevant evidence.

The threshold problem with this argument involves the necessity of building the expressway. The author has based his whole argument on the assumption that the major suppliers for city businesses are located in the outlying suburban areas, which has not been justified by any evidence. Moreover, there is no evidence indicating a lack of convenient transportation from the suppliers to the downtown area, or that such inconvenience in transportation hinders the development of downtown businesses. If all those assumptions are proved otherwise, there would simply be no need for such an expressway.

The second problem with this argument is that the author failed to justify the claim that qualified workers would be attracted to the booming downtown business. It is entirely possible that the state has been suffering from a lack of labor force and all qualified workers in other parts of the state are already employed in their own cities. In that matter, they are unlikely to work in this city whether it provides easy means of commute or not.

Even if more qualified workers can be attracted to this city, as the author claimed, is it sufficient for the city economy to thrive? Just consider the possible scenario that with an easier means of commute provided, local workers might also seek employment in other cities. Lacking evidence that jobs in this city are more attractive than elsewhere, the influx of qualified workers from other cities might be balanced by the outflow of local workers. Thus, building the expressway might not achieve the alleged effects.

In addition, the author failed to illustrate how the employment of hundreds of workers for the construction of the expressway would further stimulate the economy. Common sense about economics tells me that it may not be the case. First, is such a huge pool of workers available? If not, even the construction of the expressway itself is infeasible. Even if we concede that the employment of workers can produce positive effects on local economy, what would happen to the workers when the expressway is completed? Suppose the number of workers employed for constructing the expressway is large enough to have a significant effect on the local economy, the sudden emergence of such a huge number of unemployed workers can be a disturbing problem to the society as well. The author’s conclusion that constructing the expressway itself stimulates the local economy is a hasty one.

In conclusion, this newsletter fails to convince me that constructing such an expressway will benefit the local economy. To strengthen it, the author first needs to prove that the expressway is necessary, by providing evidence that the lack of convenient transportation from the suburbs to the downtown has limited the development of downtown businesses. Furthermore, he also needs to illustrate building the expressway is sufficient for the local economy to thrive, and that the construction of such an expressway is feasible.


感觉写得啰嗦。。求修改。。谢谢