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

Being concerned about Maple Country becoming overdeveloped, the council of Maple Country puts forward a proposal to prevent the development of existing farmland. At the same time, the council is also concerned that by putting such restriction on building new homes, the supply of homes would be decreased and that may lead to a notable increase in the price of houses in the country. The argument has many vague points, each raising questions that needed to be answered by the author.

First and foremost, the council needs to ask how much of the construction would take place exclusively in the farmlands. The extent to which development restriction can have any effect on the prices, is related to how much restrictions in reality would be imposed on the building new houses. If there are not many farmlands in Maple country, then the restriction would not have any significant effect on the housing price, since there might be a significant amount of other forms of land which are proper for constructions.

Secondly, to weigh the proponents’ idea against the opponents’ idea, the author of the argument needs to ask which country is the Maple country more alike. Proponents of the measure rely on the Chestnut country’s experience that such measures did not change the price of homes in Chestnut, while opponents of the measure rely on the Pine country’s experience that the housing price got doubled after implementing such restrictions. It is possible that the situation in Maple city differs very much which is incommensurable with either of the towns. For instance the climate and the geographic features might be quite different defying any reasonable comparison between these towns.

Finally, even if the Maple count’s situation is comparable to both of these towns, the author needs to ask whether the other elements were also involved in such a long time interval to affect the prices. As it seems, the opponents of restrictions convinced the council to predict the rise in the price of housing. However, the evidence of opponents is the experience of Pine Country in “fifteen years ago” which is such a long time. It is possible that there were many other factors playing in such an increment in the prices. In all likelihood the inflation, the growth of the population, and so many other factors can have a hand in the price changes. If that is the case, then the mere restriction is not necessarily related to the rise of the prices and it casts serious doubts whether the rise in the prices happens in the Maple country.

In short, the enumerated questions, whose answers illustrates the argument, remained unaddressed by the author. Therefore, the conclusion which is based on such an inconclusive argument cannot be tenable.