TOPIC: ARGUMENT109

MDZhaoUID: 2162540

- The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Maple City newspaper.

"Twenty years ago Pine City established strict laws designed to limit the number of new buildings that could be constructed in the city. Since that time the average housing prices in Pine City have increased considerably. Chestnut City, which is about the same size as Pine City, has over the past twenty years experienced an increase in average housing prices similar to Pine City, but Chestnut City never established any laws that limit new building construction. So it is clear that laws limiting new construction have no effect on average housing prices. So if Maple City were to establish strict laws that limit new building construction, these laws will have no effect on average housing prices."


Outlines:
Topic sentence of each paragraph.

1.        20年前的例子今天不再适用。
2.        例子中的两个城市房价上涨的原因可能不同。Pine City主要因为建筑业限制，而Chestnut则主要是因为当地的经济增长活跃。
3.        例子中用’same’和’similar’来描述两个城市的相似性，含混不清。
4.        在如上两个城市中的例子在Maple不一定适用，Maple可能正在经历快速的经济增长，使得经济会受到很大影响。

The letter predicts that strict laws of limitation new building construction in Maple City will have no effect on the level of housing prices. However is totally unconvincing because it is not fully developed and has problems in every particle of its reasoning line.

The evidence provided by the author to support the conclusion of construction limit’s effect less on housing prices is an example collected 20 years ago. However, the situation today may be totally different from it was 20 years ago. Considering of the population at that time, may be the country then have less population then, and demand of new construction for living is not as strong as it is today. And, with a strong demand of new building for the increased population today, every single limit on construction will surely have a great impact on local housing prices. Without considering of the fact of time period, the example cannot be taken as evidence.

Another problem lies in the reasons why price increase similarly in the two cities with different local construction polices. The author fails to provide any analysis on this issue. In fact, although the two cities with the same size experienced similar increase in average housing price, they might have totally different reasons. It may be the case that in Chestnut City, which is more active in economy but do not have a construction limitation, development of business is the most important impetus of housing price increasing. While at the same time, in Pine City, which is less active in economy, the construction limitation becomes the main reason for housing price increasing. Without carefully study of different local situations of the two sample cities, like economy, environment, it may be not wise to make a conclusion based on this example.

Further more, the author doesn't provide any figure in comparing of Pine City and Chestnut City, instead, the words 'same' and 'similar' are employed to describe the similarity. If the original prices of houses in the two cities is very different from each other, even given that the prices grows by the same percentage, there can also be a great difference between the result prices after the growing period, and we have plenty of examples on hand in the history. Considering of the complexity of economic issues, we cannot take these ambiguous words as serious evidence to the conclusion.

At the same time, the author doesn't provide any information about the difference between Maple City and the two cities mentioned above either. So, the prediction that the limitation on new housing building will also be effect less in Maple is groundless. Maybe, those two cities do not have rapid growth of population these years, so the law to limit new construction there does not affect local economy significantly, which may not be the same case in the city of Maple. If Maple is just experiencing a quick increase in population, which, in turn, means an increase of local demand of new houses, must be effected a lot by such a limitation on construction. So, without this evidence, the prediction cannot be taken seriously.

To sum up, in order to make a sounder recommendation on the policy of constructions of Maple City, the author should go on to provide more information of the city's environment and available land area in cities of Pine and Chestnut. A further more inspect in to the difference between Maple and the two sample cities above should also be carried out.