The council of Maple County, concerned about the county's becoming overdeveloped,
is debating a proposed measure that would prevent the development of existing
farmland in the county. But the council is also concerned that such a restriction, by
limiting the supply of new housing, could lead to significant increases in the price of
housing in the county. Proponents of the measure note that Chestnut County
established a similar measure ten years ago, and its housing prices have increased
only modestly since. However, opponents of the measure note that Pine County
adopted restrictions on the development of new residential housing fifteen years ago,
and its housing prices have since more than doubled. The council currently predicts
that the proposed measure, if passed, will result in a significant increase in housing
prices in Maple County.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in
order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are
reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to
evaluate the prediction.
While it may be true that imposing a restriction on developing the county's existing farmland would reduce the supply of new housing, leading to significant increases in the housing price, the council of Maple County fails to provide compelling evidence to support such a claim. Limited supply of new housing may lead to increased house prices, but the council's argument is plagued with assumptions and speculations, and therefore, not strong enough to convince me.
First, the council assumes that a restriction on developing existing farmland would limit the supply of new housing, which seems to make sense but the council needs to present us supporting evidence. It is very likely that the county can remove some of its low density residential areas and build taller apartment buildings that are more efficient in providing housing. Moreover, there may be many other types of land, other than farmland, that can be allocated to provide housing, such as abandoned industrial zones, land not attended because of poor urban planning, etc. Whether farmland is the only source of land that can be used to build houses? If not, the council's claim would be compromised.
In addition, the council assumes that the demand for housing is greater than the quantity supplied, or the price of houses would not increase. It could be possible that many residents of Maple County would migrate to other places, reducing the demand for houses and supplying empty houses in the housing market. Is the demand for houses greater than the supply? To better understand the housing market at Maple County, we need to see statistics and experts opinions on the dynamics of supply and demand, which the council fails to provide in its argument.
Finally, the proponents and opponents cite the results of similar restrictions in Chestnut County and Pine County respectively to support their opinions. It is worth noting that the similar restrictions were established ten years ago in Chestnut County and fifteen years ago in Pine County. A lot of things may have become different in the past ten or fifteen years, so evidence from Chestnut or Pine may not apply to the present. Moreover, Chestnut and Pine may be very different from Maple in terms of housing market, demographics, economic conditions, etc. Thus, it would be questionable whether these two examples should be considered, unless the council provides further explaination.
In sum, the council's claim that adopting restrictions on developing existing farmlands into residential housings would lead to increased housing prices at Maple is not compelling. Many questions need to be answered and more evidence is needed to justify its prediction.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 434 350
No. of Characters: 2207 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.564 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.085 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.647 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 175 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.125 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.641 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.562 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.369 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.616 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.168 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 353, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'councils'' or 'council's'?
Suggestion: councils'; council's
...lead to increased house prices, but the councils argument is plagued with assumptions an...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, if, may, moreover, so, therefore, thus, while, in addition, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2263.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 434.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.21428571429 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56428161445 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73032919036 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.488479262673 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 683.1 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.1738098546 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.722222222 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1111111111 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.88888888889 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.250914020394 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0898764343602 0.0743258471296 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0809200039845 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.159949784224 0.128457276422 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0495305301023 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.9 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.