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 measure mentioned in the argument is confusing regarding the restrictions on existing farmland and limiting the supply of new housing. In addition, the two references of Chestnut County and Pine County bears little connection to Maple County due to the particular time range and conditions. Therefore, just based on the argument, the prediction that the housing prices will increase tremendously is not convincing.

The prediction regarding the housing prices is based on the measure used to prevent the County from overdeveloping. Consequently, in order to evaluate the prediction, the measure and restrictions need to be evaluated first. According to the argument, the council think to stop the county from overdevelopment, existing farmland has to be stopped from developing, which will moreover be accomplished by limiting the supply of new housing. The logic is confusing. To help with the evaluation, the first question that needs to be answered is what causes the County to be overdeveloped? If the answers are not because of the expansion of farmland; rather, it is because that the number of industries or public transit facilities has substantially increased, this way the whole argument and prediction is invalid in the first place.

To continue with the evaluation, hypothetically, the expansion of the farmland is the reason. the second question is will the restrictions on the supply of new housing help achieve the goal of preventing the further development of the existing farmland? If the answer is positive, it implies the expansion of the farmland is mainly because that when people buy new houses, they will likely develop their farmland as well, so in order to stop them from farming, stop selling new houses. On the other hand, if the expansion of the farmland is primarily caused by building on the top of the original farmland by the current households, limiting the supply of new housing will not help with preventing the existing farmland from developing. Subsequently, for the purpose of preventing the overdevelopment of the existing farmland and the county, limiting the supply of the housing is invalid, nor is the prediction.

Additionally, the council made the prediction referring to the results of Chestnut County and Pine County. Again, hypothetically limiting the supply of new housing is valid, the prediction is still not convincing at all. To help evaluate, the question needed to be answered is how did they come up with the prediction that the pricing will greatly increase based the two contrasted references? First, both of these two Counties set motion the restrictions about a decade ago, which is too long to have much value of referring. Second, both counties had their particular conditions for their restrictions to result in the current housing situation. The specific conditions that Maple County has could be completely different with both of them. Therefore, no explanation is given to verify the council’s prediction.

In conclusion, through the process of answering some critical questions, we can reasonably say that neither the argument nor the prediction is convincing.