Question:
　　The following editorial appeared in the Elm City paper.
　　`The construction last year of a shopping mall in downtown Oak City was a mistake. Since the mall has opened, a number of local businesses have closed, and the downtown area suffers from an acute parking shortage, and arrests for crime and vagrancy have increased in the nearby Oak City Park. Elm City should pay attention to the example of the Oak City mall and deny the application to build a shopping mall in Elm City.~
　　Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
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　　Your Answer:
　　The author's conclusion is that Elm City should deny the application to build a shopping mall in the city. To substantiate the conclusion, the author points out that accompany with the parking shortage in the downtown area, a number of local businesses have closed since the shopping mall has opened in downtown Oak City. Also, the author points out that the arrests for crime and vagrancy have increased in the nearby Oak City Park. Close scrutiny, however, reveals several logical flaws of this argument.
　　To begin with, the author fails to establish the causal relationship between the shopping mall's opening and the closing of local businesses. The sequence of these events, in itself, does not suffice to prove that the former caused the later one. It is entirely possible that the Oak City suffers a depression in economy ever since the mall opened, and also, that the technique of local businesses had been out of date. No additional evidence linking the two events is offered in the argument, thus, leaving the possibility that the two events are merely coincident rather than causally related.
　　Moreover, the author's conclusion is also based on the assumption that the shopping mall has caused the increase in crime and vagrancy. However, it is not necessarily the case. Firstly, the increase in arrests for crime and vagrancy is not equal to the commits of crime and vagrancy. Lacking sufficient information, the author cannot preclude the possibility that the increase of arrests resulted from the more strict policy of arrests. Secondly, it is equally possible that the depression of economy is the true reason for the increasing crime and vagrancy.
　　Finally, even if the shopping mall did cause the closing of local business and the increasing crime and vagrancy in Oak City, the author's prediction that Elm City will suffer from the same fate as Oak City is still open to doubt. Without better evidence showing any similarity between the two cities, it is unwarranted to conclude that a shopping mall will lead to the same results in Elm City. Probably the Elm City has not enough shopping malls to meet the need of the citizens. Also, it is possible that the local businesses in Elm City have great competitive advantages and will not be forced to close by the shopping mall and that the police in Elm City are efficient in impeding the crime and vagrancy. If true, these differences may seriously undermine the conclusion based on the analogy between the two cities.
　　Based on the reasons I listed above, the argument is logically flawed and therefore unconvincing as it stands. To bolster it, the author should provide better evidence that (1) the closing the local businesses in Oak City is caused by the shopping mall (2) the shopping mall is the only reason for the increase in arrests for crime and vagrancy (3) Oak City and Elm City share enough similarities to suffer from the same fate.
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