Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Example Argument

The following appeared in a letter from the mayor of Tudor City.

"After a major airline chose Yorkville as its regional flight hub, the number of businesses in that city almost doubled and local tax revenue increased by 50 percent. In addition, as travel to Yorkville became easier, most respondents to a survey of the country's top executives identified Yorkville as a desirable place to transact business. To secure efficient transportation for Tudor City and stimulate our local economy, we should build a new airport, like the one in Yorkville, that is suitable for a regional flight hub."

3 comments:

  1. The conclusions of the mayor appear specious as she has not stated any concrete reasons for the construction of the airport. There are a number of issues to be considered before the mayor should have issued the letter. Some of the anomalies are:

    Firstly, transportation in a city is dependent on a number of factors such as size and population. It appears that Yorkville is a much larger town on both issues. Hence the need of an airport. The mayor is comparing her city to the other without giving important data like population etc.

    Secondly, even if we assume that both cities are of comparable size, if one city already has an airport, there would not be much sense in building another one a few miles away from it. The city could instead invest on roads and rails to and from the present airport to improve transportation.

    Thirdly, the mayor does not mention anywhere the differences in the types of businesses in the two cities. Yorkville could be a tourism based economy and Tudor might be a farming economy.
    And an airport might not be beneficial to that kind of economy.

    To conclude, the mayor should first consider all the aforementioned points before making a proposal.

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  2. The conclusions of the mayor appear specious as she has not stated any concrete reasons for the construction of the airport. There are a number of issues to be considered before the mayor should have issued the letter. Some of the anomalies are:

    Firstly, transportation in a city is dependent on a number of factors such as size and population. It appears that Yorkville is a much larger town on both issues. Hence the need of an airport. The mayor is comparing her city to the other without giving important data like population etc.

    Secondly, even if we assume that both cities are of comparable size, if one city already has an airport, there would not be much sense in building another one a few miles away from it. The city could instead invest on roads and rails to and from the present airport to improve transportation.

    Thirdly, the mayor does not mention anywhere the differences in the types of businesses in the two cities. Yorkville could be a tourism based economy and Tudor might be a farming economy.
    And an airport might not be beneficial to that kind of economy.

    To conclude, the mayor should first consider all the aforementioned points before making a proposal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Generally for most of the places it alwasy turns out to be a boost to have a major flight company connecting it to other parts of the nation and making the travel easier. However the figures given by the author in the above passage seems highly unbelievable. Business in most of the places depends not just on air-transport but also on energy supply, water suplly, skilled workers and infrastructure.

    The authour has not mentioned what kind of business has doubled in the city. There could be a case where the figure given above is for a business which is not connected to air travel at all. It could be for something which is releated to poultry which does not require air connectivity as much as it requires road connectivity.

    We do not know how much considerable was the number of the business after being getting doubled. Though the air travel seemed to become easier for the region its does not counts for people to just fly over there and start new business and eventually doubling the business. People must have calculated profit before they actually decided to go over there. Which highly depends on the tex benefits provided by the local government, lower inflow of capital as in terms of raw material which does not depend so much on air supply but on road connections to various other places and easier access to energy and water supply. On top of all this, the basic requirement for a business for getting established is a proper infrastructure. Which calls for enough raw material and free land. And not just any land the terrain plays an important part while selecting the land. One must also check whether this land comes in the earthquake zone or not.

    Its mentioned that the local tax benefit increased by 50%. The reason behind this increase could be various. May be the government has increased the tax percent recently. Or it could have increased by some business which is locally dependent and requires no air transport like real estate.

    In the survey of the country's top executives, they have just identified Yorkville as a desireable place to transact business, but giving an opinion on a survey and actually planning to start a business are two different things. They might have considered the place as desirable but that does not guarantee that they will finally choose it as there destination.

    Finally all this has been discussed to ensure efficent transportation for Tudor city. Before considering about the air connectivity for this city one would like to assess the rail and road connectivity. Air connectivity alone can never guarantee a boost in economy. And thats why what has worked for Yorkville may not work for Tudor city. The local business might be totally different in both the cities. If for example Tudor city is based on few of the near by mines then in that case air transport wont help in its betterment at all, as it is mostly based on railway connectivity. The people and there education level plays and important part when it comes to business. It might be possible that in Yorkville the business is mostly service based and which requires educated people. While in Tudor city the business might be related to manufacturing plants which does not require that level of education.

    I would like to conclude that for boosting the economy one needs to pay more attention to basic requirements and flaws in the current business. Only when these things have been considered properly one can think of air connectivity. It may turn out that Tudor city does not need Air connectivity at all.

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