The following appeared in a recommendation from the planning department of the city of Transopolis.
"Ten years ago, as part of a comprehensive urban renewal program, the city of Transopolis adapted for industrial use a large area of severely substandard housing near the freeway. Subsequently, several factories were constructed there, crime rates in the area declined, and property tax revenues for the entire city increased. To further revitalize the city, we should now take similar action in a declining residential area on the opposite side of the city. Since some houses and apartments in existing nearby neighborhoods are currently unoccupied, alternate housing for those displaced by this action will be readily available."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The argument states that industrializing substandard housing near the freeway was beneficial in terms of an increase in tax revenues and a decline in the crime rates of the area. It has a lot of weak points and it makes some assumptions while arriving at the conclusion.
It assumes that the people in the declining residential area would readily relocate to the neighborhood. It would be important to find out whether the people are ready to relocate. This is a major factor affecting the initial part of the plan where the residents would be first moved out of the area. It is also important to know if this new area is geographically well suited for the industry. Just because there was a growth in the number of industries constructed near the freeway we cannot assume that the same would happen again. The factors related to industrial growth and building should be considered.
In the last 10 years, the number of industries in the cities has grown tremendously. Under such circumstances would new industries be possibly constructed in the new area; this is a question the planning department needs to consider. Pertaining to the already proliferating industries, concerns over pollution have increased. Subsequently, the heath and pollution department has put strict regulations with respect to industrial operations and construction of new industries. Considering all these factors what the probability of success for the new plan would be, needs to be evaluated.
It would also be important to know some other facts about the new area like – the crime rate, tax revenue generated by the area, etc; since these factors are said to be the positive outcome of the first industrialization. Would industrializing the area considering the factors discussed indeed be a fruitful result needs to be properly assessed. Nonetheless, if all these factors fit in perfectly then industrializing the new area would surely be a very efficacious result.
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 317 350
No. of Characters: 1600 1500
No. of Different Words: 164 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.22 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.047 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.079 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 106 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 86 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.812 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.876 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.375 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.347 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.486 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.106 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 3 5