ESSAY PROMPT

In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river’s water and the river’s smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is, therefore, sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year’s budget to riverside recreational facilities.

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

ESSAY

Mason City Government needs to proceed with a bit more caution as interest in Mason River recreational activity ramps up. Despite the stated facts—the burgeoning popularity of water sports among Mason residents, the complaints about water quality including odor, and the State’s plans to clean up the river. There is still a lot riding on assumption as opposed to fact, data or indeed the reality of the situation in Mason City. As the city government plans to earmark more funding this fiscal year to riverside recreational facilities the following three points ought to be considered for their potential effects on the outcomes of such expenditures. First and foremost, is the Mason River going to be a viable site for marine recreational activities? Second, given the viability of such facilities, would Mason River recreational infrastructure be economically sustainable and competitive with regional waterfront facilities that are already proven more popular among locals? And finally, is opening the riverfront up to water sports really the best use of this valuable city resource? Only after these underlying assumptions have been thoroughly investigated, should Mason City government proceed with their laudable if perhaps overly-ambitious commitment of funding to this development effort.

Likely the most significant assumption being made ahead of the city’s investment in riverfront recreational infrastructure has to do with the safety of the riverfront in general. What is known is the history of pollution in the river. This history will not soon be forgotten in the community. And so, the city ought to take a long, hard look at the reality of clean-up measures, as well as advertising and public-relations campaigns that might be necessary to convince locals that that stinky eyesore in their backyards is the next vacation hotspot. Only after a more detailed development plan is mapped out can, the nitty-gritty of the budget for such a project be comprehended with clarity. And the last thing the city needs is to get involved in such an ill-begotten project only to have some poor child be poisoned or otherwise put in danger from exposure to a half-baked tourism boosting scheme.

After safety has been fully contemplated, the actual useage of the riverfront ought to be next under the microscope. As popular as water sports are apparently among the denizens of Mason City, there may well be other sectors with interests in this valuable property. Indeed city tourism may be better served by developing the riverfront as an upscale commercial property rather than a beer-soaked weekend waterhole. Or else, the industries which have up to this point been using the river for waste disposal may indeed have some economic stake in keeping marine sports out. The city is assuming that marine recreation is the best choice for riverside development, which just may not be the case.

Finally, can Mason River really be expected to compete with other facilities in the region, which are already so popular among the locals? This needs to be demonstrated before any development project can reasonably be expected to move forward.

Once these three major underlying assumptions have had the proper exposure to the light of day, with community input and appropriate data gathering and analysis, then and only then may the Mason City government be able to move proceed on its commitment of more funds to developing the waterfront for recreational purposes.

REFLECTION

Wanted to cram one more 30 minute one of these in before bedtime, since tomorrow I have the children all day, and I won’t likely have time to commit to it then.  (Parenting humble-brag?  Yuck!)  Obviously needed to devote a bit more time to re-reading/ double-checking.  I caught a few mistakes on my read through after the timer went off.  Booo!  Hiss!  Possibly a function of it being after 1am when I finished this.  Then again, this light exhaustion/ heavy caffeine state is probably a good simulation of test day state of mind.

Argument Topic 10

ESSAY PROMPT

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.

ESSAY

The underlying argument being made by Maple County government is that its housing development situation is most similar to that of Pine County, where in the span of 15 years since the passage of a new measure limiting development, prices have doubled. This doesn’t preclude some similarities to Chestnut County, where prices have increased only modestly after a similar measure, but it signifies Maple County’s more cautious approach to housing prices. In order to come to evaluate Maple County’s decision effectively, some other factors need to be taken into account, to whit: the rate at Pine County and Chestnut County’s housing prices have increased in the years ensuing since the passage of their respective policy measures, the projected rates of change for housing costs in the future in those communities, and in what ways each communities’ policy measures differed with respect to the amount of development that was allowed. When these factors are taken into account, the Maple County leadership will be able to make a much more clear-eyed decision about the fate of their community.

The most glaring question has to do with the relative similarities of these three Counties. Is Maple more similar to Chestnut or Pine and in what respects? Likewise, how similar are Chestnut and Pine to each other. The time scale on the data presented here is such that Pine and Chestnut Counties’ housing price rates could very well be increasing at identical rates. That is the prices in Pine County may well have increased at only a modest rate in the first 10 years before nearly doubling in the interim between the tenth and fifteenth. In any event, the Maple County real estate mavens have judged that their community is dangerously similar to Pine in the longer term, but more information, on the congruencies of these economies would certainly help fine tune any policy decision.

Another factor that is absolutely begging for further elucidation is the actual rates of development that were allowed for farmland in these three arborial burroughs. The powers that be in Maple would do well in their preliminary studies to tweak the development side of the equation too. In other words, how much farmland was allowed to be developed over time in Chestnut and Pine. Can these development numbers be correlated with the ballooning housing prices there. This more refined speculation might well give the Maple council members a hint about how much farmland development ought to be allowed in an ideal situation.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list of further factors for study. Starting and ending housing prices in each community would be more than pertinent….

REFLECTION

This is the second one of these I wrote this morning.  Not at all confident about it.  But it was a good stamina check.  I happened to pick 2 very similar topics– both dealing with small community economic policies.  Need to make certain I don’t let my ideology get the best of me and start leaking out into my writing in the form of irrelevant off-topic palavering.