Many cities face the problem of sprawl--unchecked

Question

Many cities face the problem of sprawl--unchecked development in areas outside of a city center where adequate transportation infrastructure may not yet exist. The city of Masonville is experiencing rapid population growth, which can lead to sprawl. The city council recently passed a transportation concurrency measure, which requires that roads and other infrastructure be in place before developers can build in an area.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the usefulness of the proposal?
(A) In neighboring Dorsetville, a similar measure caused transportation infrastructure costs to nearly double in the first year after its passage.
(B) Where rapid population growth exists, sprawl is rarely avoided.
(C) Some developers include privately funded transportation infrastructure in their plans for new surburban shopping malls and neighborhoods.
(D) The concurrency measure ensures that any development likely to attract more than 100 new residents would be served by at least one of Masonville's bus routes.
(E) The majority of new areas in which developers build do not attract large populations that require significant transportation infrastructure.

Zarrolou · Answer

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the usefulness of the proposal?

We have to look for an answer that shows us that the plan to "build infrastructure in place before developers can build in an area" is not effective. 
Generally speaking in those kind of questions the correct answer will   undermine the relationship "population growth - sprawl"  .

(A) In neighboring Dorsetville, a similar measure caused transportation infrastructure costs to nearly double in the first year after its passage. 
The cost increase is not cause of reduction of the usefulness of the proposal, it's just a bad consequence of it.
 (B) Where rapid population growth exists, sprawl is rarely avoided. 
This doesn't affect the proposal at all.
 (C) Some developers include privately funded transportation infrastructure in their plans for new surburban shopping malls and neighborhoods. 
This is a fact. We cannot connect this to the usefulness of the proposal.
 (D) The concurrency measure ensures that any development likely to attract more than 100 new residents would be served by at least one of Masonville's bus routes. 
We cannot say if this is enough to avoid sprawl, this is a fact (like C) and this answer is not connected to the proposal at all.
 (E) The majority of new areas in which developers build do not attract large populations that require significant transportation infrastructure.  
  CORRECT. The relationship "population growth - sprawl" is undermined. There is no need to proceed with the plan because it is not necessary or useful.

ssbisht · Answer

Argument 
sprawl--unchecked development in areas outside of a city centre where adequate transportation infrastructure may not yet exist.
The city of Masonville is experiencing rapid population growth, which can lead to sprawl.
To prevent that city council passed a transportation concurrency measure.

Pre thinking 
The reason Masonville can  experience sprawl is the rapid population growth. 
The proposal will be useful if it prevents sprawl but its usefulness will be reduced if it hinders the development instead of serving its purpose of preventing sprawl.

Analysis of answer choice: 
(A) In neighboring Dorsetville, a similar measure caused transportation infrastructure costs to nearly double in the first year after its passage.
INCORRECT: The increased infrastructure cost is negative but may be good if population served by infrastructure also increased substantially. The conditions are not very clear in this case so cant make any conclusion using this.

(B) Where rapid population growth exists, sprawl is rarely avoided.
INCORRECT: This doesn’t helps to know if the proposal will be helpful.

(C) Some developers include privately funded transportation infrastructure in their plans for new surburban shopping malls and neighbourhoods.
INCORRECT: Irrelevant

(D) The concurrency measure ensures that any development likely to attract more than 100 new residents would be served by at least one of Masonville's bus routes.
INCORRECT: Not indicating anything negative about usefulness of proposal.

(E) The majority of new areas in which developers build do not attract large populations that require significant transportation infrastructure.
 CORRECT: Since majority of areas do not attract large population so the underlying reason behind sprawl i,e rapid population growth doesn’t exists in this case. Hence the proposal will actually cost unnecessary spending on transportation infrastructure which will make it difficult for builder to develop faster and hence will undermine usefulness of the proposal.

pqhai · Answer

KEY is to attack the conclusion:

Conclusion:  The proposal will be successful IF roads and other infrastructure be in place before developers can build in an area.

Assumption:    People will move to areas that have significant transportation infrastructure  .

What if people do not want to move to those areas, they still want to live areas that do not have significant transportation infrastructure ==> the proposal will be failed

E says areas having transportation infrastructure do not attract large population, therefore areas that do not have significant transportation infrastructure still have many people. ==> The proposal will fail.

Hence, E is correct.

ppskc1989 · Answer

Let us examine the options.

Option A :  In neighboring Dorsetville, a similar measure caused transportation infrastructure costs to nearly double in the first year after its passage.
 This might seem to undermine the usefulness of the proposal initially but we cannot conclusively say whether the increase in population is proportionately beneficial to compensate for the increased cost or not. 
 So Option A may be incorrect.

Option B :  Where rapid population growth exists, sprawl is rarely avoided.
 This is a direct fact and the proposal is actually passed to tackle the problem of sprawl. This option doesn't undermine the usefulness of the proposal. In fact it actually might be the reason for the birth of the proposal. 
 So Option B is incorrect.

Option C :  Some developers include privately funded transportation infrastructure in their plans for new suburban shopping malls and neighborhoods.
 This means the proposal might become redundant, but only in some cases. There can be still other cases where the proposal is useful. 
 Hence Option C is incorrect.

Option D :  The concurrency measure ensures that any development likely to attract more than 100 new residents would be served by at least one of Masonville's bus routes.
 Irrelevant. This is the benefit of the proposal. This doesn't undermine the usefulness of the proposal.
 Hence Option D is incorrect.

Option E :  The majority of new areas in which developers build do not attract large populations that require significant transportation infrastructure.
 Now if the areas do not attract large populations then the huge amounts of money invested in building the transportation infrastructure might lay waste. This is because of the proposal that the transportation infrastructure should be built first. This undermines the usefulness of the proposal.
  Hence Option E is correct.

So the correct answer is Option E.

avohden · Answer

This appears to be a GMAT Hacks question of the day. It appeared/reappeared on 5/28/2013. The   Official Explanation   is as follows:

Answer: E    This is a weaken question. The proposal sets out to limit the negative effects of sprawl by requiring that infrastructure is in place before developers can build in an area. Consider each choice, looking for a reason why the proposal may not have positive results: (A) An increase in cost may not be a good thing, but if the population rapidly increased, it may be well be desirable to spend that much money on transportation. It's unclear whether this evidence would undermine the proposal. (B) This choice is far too general to be correct. Whether or not sprawl is rarely avoided does not indicate whether the proposal will have beneficial effects. (C) This choice would seem to reduce the demands of the proposal; however, the word "some" suggests that the proposal would still be necessary if such infrastructure were desirable. (D) This choice suggests a potential benefit of the proposal. There's no drawback here. (E) This is correct. If the proposal were enacted, there would be an unnecessary financial burden on either the city or on developers, making it more difficult to develop areas like this--areas that do not exhibit the characteristics of sprawl.

aaba · Answer

I believe this question will be better if it is modified.
Both B and E can be the answer. E is actually a common pattern while the pattern in B just exists in this question.
The idea of B has been well-addressed by the explanation.

push12345 · Answer

E clearly demonstrates why constructing roads and other transportation facilities is a bad idea.

As per question we need to show that why construction of roads and transportation is not good idea and E does exaclty that.

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VerbalBot · Answer

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Many cities face the problem of sprawl--unchecked

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Many cities face the problem of sprawl--unchecked

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