The following appeared in a recommendation from the president of Amburg's Chamber of Commerce."Last October the city of Belleville installed high-intensity lighting in its central business district, and vandalism there declined within a month. The city of

In order to combat crime and revitalize neighborhoods in Amburg, the city should implement policy which was already adopted in Belleville. The president of Amburg's Chamber of Commerce bolsters this conclusion by several supportive evidences; however, does the author manage to create sound argument? To estimate the conclusion these evidences should be carefully scrutinized.

First of all, the central assumption of this recommendation is that comparison of Belleville and Amburg is reasonable because only in this case, the president may extrapolate supposed success of implementation of new policy in Belleville extrapolate on Amburg. However, we are not given enough information to conclude that they are equal or even similar to each other, therefore, some other factors which are not taken into account by the writer have affected the effectiveness of the policy. For instance, if the central of Belleville has an intricate system of video cameras which are fixed all acts of vandalism. In this case, the installation of the high-intensity lighting may skyrocket efficiency of the usage of the cameras. Consequently, a mere installation of the lighting will not have expected result on rate of crimes.

Additionally to it, the author asserts that policy which was fulfilled in Amburg is not effective due to the fact that rate of vandalism remains the same. However, vandalism is only on of many kinds of crimes, moreover, it is not the gravest one either. Perhaps, the police patrols on bicycles has caused the dramatic decline is such serious crimes as rape and robbery. The recommendation could have strengthen had the writer given us more thoughtful and comprehensive statistic of crime committed before and after the establishment of police patrols.

Besides, the argument avers that repetition of the Belleville policy will revitalize the declining neighborhoods in our city. However, how does the author of the argument buttress this statement? In fact, the proposed policy, probably will not be aimed on the real causes of the decline, in this case, author's expectation of enhancement of the situation is unwarranted. For example, if the enforcement of the law in the city is weak and as a result, public does not follow it, the installation of the high-intensity lighting will not improve the current situation. Moreover, the author believes that new policy will revitalize the districts, but, perhaps, the policy will not address to the causes of the problem. If Amburg has suffered from economic problems and, for example, a rate of unemployment is high, the city government's actions should be directed on solving the root of the problem. The author of the argument might have made the recommendation stronger had he demonstrated the connection between the decline and the rate of vandalism, for instance, the result of local survey which points on the fact that many of local residents think to move on because of the vandalism. Till the connection is not obvious, the acceptance of author's recommendation is not reasonable.

In conclusion, the implementation of policy which has a positive result in Belleville, may or may not have expected result, due to the fact that these towns may not be similar to each other as well as the causes of the problems may not be the same.