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 author of the above prompt assumes that if the city takes over a diminishing residential area to an industrial area, crime rates will decline and property tax revenues will increase in the area. The author came to this conclusion based on a similar successful urban renewal program that was also done in Transopolis on another side of the city. Unfortunately, this author makes some postulations which must be addressed before one can decide if the recommendation will help the city grow.
First off, the author assumes that the location of the declining residential area and the other area which has been taken over by factories are comparable. There are various standards upon which theses two can be compared. For instance, is this new area conducive for factories to thrive? Does it have all the requirement for the future employers and workers such as constant power supply, security, parks and other leisure areas? The existence of these prerequisites will further strengthen the author’s argument. However, if they are not available, investors and manufacturers may not be interested in building in such areas. Another important factor to consider is the accessibility of the area. The other side of Transpolis where a similar project was successfully carried out was near a freeway and hence was accessible to the consumers. If the manufacturers will be unable to move their goods to wholesalers and other clients due to poor accessibility, then it is unlikely that they will build in such an area. This unfortunately weakens the proposition of the author.
Furthermore, the author assumes that the people that will be displaced from the deteriorating area will be willing to move to the nearby neighbourhoods that are unoccupied. The author does not take into cognizance that there may be reasons for which that neighborhood is not fully occupied. The area may have high crime rates. It is possible that the robberies and gang fights in that area occur constantly. Families may have moved away from this area to more secure areas in the city. This means that those that will be displaced by the development project may be unwilling to move to this area and hence may be forced to remain homeless. The new area may also be characterized by flooding or bad roads which automatically makes it a poor choice for relocating the displaced people. These factors, if present, will do more harm than good to the economy of the city and hence, will not strengthen the argument of the author.
The author’s argument, although intended to bring economic development to the city is flawed in various ways. There is need for more research and evidence to support the recommendation before it can be carried out. If the evidence proves that two areas are truly comparable and that the part of the city where the displaced inhabitants will be moved to is truly secure and habitable, then it will support the author’s argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 489 350
No. of Characters: 2393 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.702 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.894 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.786 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 148 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.375 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.123 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.708 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.306 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.445 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.058 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, so, then, for instance, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 25.0 12.9520958084 193% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2452.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 489.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01431492843 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70248278971 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87180062776 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.460122699387 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 788.4 705.55239521 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.967814072 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.166666667 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.375 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.41666666667 5.70786347227 60% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.134777302832 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0444961255387 0.0743258471296 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0346253140214 0.0701772020484 49% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102990478601 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0419230853399 0.0628817314937 67% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.34 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.