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.


Author in the prompt suggested that the housing price will escalate if a proposed measure of preventing the development of existing farmland in the county. At the first glance, the author’s conclusion was quite convincing. However, after reviewing the given reasons of the argument, the argument is marred by a mass of superfluous details and there are a lot of questions that the author need to address in order to draw such a conclusion.

The author used the information of housing state from Chest county and Pine county to predict the housing price in Maple county. However, the author explained the proponents of measures ten and fifteen years ago respectively. It is not known whether this information is valid to be used to predict the housing price in Maple County. This information may not seem valid as there are a lot of changes happening in housing price due to the country economic status within the ten to fifteen years. The author needs to discuss the difference of housing price within the ten to fifth years to draw the conclusion of increasing housing prices in Maple County by providing statistics of the housing prices for the past ten years. If the author is able to provide evidences of increase housing price in Maple County, then the conclusion that the author deduces may be accurate.

Besides this, the author have not conducted any survey or studies to show that the retrospective and current housing price and demand in Maple County. It is not known whether the housing price in Maple County remains stagnant or escalate in the past ten years. Perhaps the demand of houses in Maple County is less. If this is the case, then the housing price in Maple County is unlikely to raise due to low demand of houses. If the author is able to proof that there is an increasing housing price in Maple County due to high demand, then it could be concluded that by restricting the development of existing farmland in the county will likely to increase in housing prices in Maple County.

As a conclusion, the author needs to answer a few questions as stated above to make such a conclusion that by preventing the development of existing farmland in the Maple County will likely increase the housing price in Maple County.