Urban planner: When a city loses population due to migration, property

To weaken an argument, you have to be clear regarding what the conclusion of that argument is. The conclusion of this argument is that the city government of Stonebridge should refrain from raising property taxes.

Thus, to weaken the argument, we need a choice that shows that even though tax increases can result in a compounding of a city’s issues related to outmigration, the conclusion that Stonebridge should refrain from raising tax rates does not necessarily follow from the premises.

(A) If Stonebridge does not raise taxes on its residents to maintain its infrastructure, the city will become much less attractive to live in as that infrastructure decays.

While this choice does not counter the idea that raising tax rates could drive people to move away from Stonebridge, it does indicate that refraining from raising rates would lead to a situation in which the attractiveness of living in Stonebridge would be decreased. A decrease in attractiveness of living in Stonebridge could influence people to move away as much as or even more than an increase in taxes would.

Therefore, as it provides a reason to question the idea that refraining from raising tax rates is the way to minimize outmigration from Stonebridge, while this choice does not destroy the argument, it does provide a reason to call the conclusion of the argument into question, and thus this choice is our weakener.

(B) Stonebridge at present benefits from grants provided by the national government to help maintain certain parts of its infrastructure.

This choice provides some indication that Stonebridge can maintain certain parts of its infrastructure without raising tax rates. However, the conclusion of the argument is not that Stonebridge needs to raise tax rates. The conclusion is that raising taxes will have a particular effect. Therefore, this choice does not affect the argument.

(C) If there is a small increase in property taxes in Stonebridge and a slightly larger proportion of total revenue than at present is allocated to infrastructure maintenance, the funding will be adequate for that purpose.

A small tax increase is still a tax increase. Thus, it could still result in people moving away from Stonebridge. Therefore, this choice does not affect the dynamic that the argument uses as evidence supporting the conclusion.

(D) Demographers project that the population of a region that includes Stonebridge will start to increase substantially within the next several years.

The fact that population of the region in which Stonebridge is located will “start to increase… within the next several years” does not clearly counter the idea that by raising tax rates Stonebridge will influence people to move away because:

- the projected population increase may not occur until some years have passed.
- it is not clear that a regional population increase will counteract the effects on Stonebridge’s population of a property tax rate increase.

Therefore, this choice does not clearly weaken the argument.

(E) The property taxes in Stonebridge are significantly lower than those in many larger cities.


This choice seems to present a fact that weakens the conclusion. The fact that property taxes in Stonebridge are significantly lower than those in many larger cities could be perceived as giving Stonebridge room to raise property tax rates without triggering further outmigration, because even if the government of Stonebridge were to increase the tax rates, the rates could still be lower than or equal to the rates of other cities.

However, there are two aspects of this choice that make it such that it does not effectively weaken the argument.

The first aspect is the use of the expression “many … cities.” That Stonebridge’s tax rates are lower than those of many cities does not mean that they are lower than those of all cities or even that they are lower than those of the majority of cities. The “many cities” with higher rates could be a small percentage of the set of all cities.

The second aspect is that regardless of whether Stonebridge’s tax rates are lower than those of other cities, increasing Stonebridge’s rates would make living in Stonebridge less attractive than it is when rates are lower.

Therefore, this choice does not undermine the idea that by increasing tax rates, Stonebridge would influence people to move away.

The correct answer is A.
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Question Type: Weakener

Main Point: Increase in property tax --> People migrate --> So property tax should not be increased.

(A) If Stonebridge does not raise taxes on its residents to maintain its infrastructure, the city will become much less attractive to live in as that infrastructure decays. - Correct. If taxes are not raised, infrastructure decays and people will migrate. So property tax should be increased.

(B) Stonebridge at present benefits from grants provided by the national government to help maintain certain parts of its infrastructure. - Incorrect. Irrelevant.

(C) If there is a small increase in property taxes in Stonebridge and a slightly larger proportion of total revenue than at present is allocated to infrastructure maintenance, the funding will be adequate for that purpose. - Incorrect. Out of scope. We do not know whether a larger proportion of total revenue can be allocated for infrastructure maintainance.

(D) Demographers project that the population of a region that includes Stonebridge will start to increase substantially within the next several years. - Incorrect. Irrelevant.

(E) The property taxes in Stonebridge are significantly lower than those in many larger cities. - Incorrect. Even if the taxes are lower, any increase in taxes may cause the people to migrate.

Answer: A

Premise 1: When a city loses population due to migration, property taxes in that city tend to rise.
Premise 2: This is because there are then fewer residents paying to maintain an infrastructure that was designed to support more people.
Premise 3: Rising property taxes, in turn, drive more residents away, compounding the problem.

Conclusion: Since the city of Stonebridge is starting to lose population, the city government should therefore refrain from raising property taxes.

Assumption : It is assuming that the city will continue to remain good and therefore taxes should not be increased .

Now lets get on with our answer
If suppose the taxes are not increased then the infrastructure of the city will become abysmal and no new population would want to come to the city to live .
So the taxes has to be increased
Only A can be deduced from the argument .

Option C is a trap as it is a consequence of increasing the taxes

Experts, @gmatninja

Why is option B incorrect ?

Would option B be correct if it did not mention "certain" parts of the infra and entire infra

Thanks

Even i had selected option 'b' as answer. Someone please tell me why is option 'b' incorrect.

Hi,

kunal1608


kartzcool


grants - it does not mean ALL the amount required for ALL the infrastructure maintenance is given to city by the NATIONAL GOVT.
certain parts - yes, there could be various other parts that would need dollars.

consider the scenario. if $100k is the grant and city spend $200k overall per year then city still needs $100K. right? That we the people pay as tax to city. As people leave, city govt needs to increase tax to generate the sum of $100K.

If they do not increase tax then less money available to infrastructure. This would make infrastructure keep on getting a bad shape. who wants to be in bad infrastructure. BUT then who wants to pay higher taxes. so its not good to either increase tax or let the infrastructure go dead. overall, its a bad plan to not increase tax because that will not stop people from going for the reason of bad infrastructure.

choice B does not say all this. it just says hey - some amount and some areas are covered by government. But what about the rest of the areas and rest of the amount. Choice B traps you talking about infrastructure & grant, so that it does not look irrelevant. this choice could be correct if it talked about INCREASE IN GRANT is expected or something like that.

Urban planner: When a city loses population due to migration, property taxes in that city tend to rise. This is because there are then fewer residents paying to maintain an infrastructure that was designed to support more people. Rising property taxes, in turn, drive more residents away, compounding the problem. Since the city of Stonebridge is starting to lose population, the city government should therefore refrain from raising property taxes.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the urban planner's argument?

(A) If Stonebridge does not raise taxes on its residents to maintain its infrastructure, the city will become much less attractive to live in as that infrastructure decays. -Correct. If the city becomes inhabitable then there is no point in reducing the tax.
(B) Stonebridge at present benefits from grants provided by the national government to help maintain certain parts of its infrastructure. -This strengthens the argument because if the city receives support from the government then it perhaps it could refrain from increasing the tax.
(C) If there is a small increase in property taxes in Stonebridge and a slightly larger proportion of total revenue than at present is allocated to infrastructure maintenance, the funding will be adequate for that purpose. -No purpose is discussed in the passage.
(D) Demographers project that the population of a region that includes Stonebridge will start to increase substantially within the next several years. -Several years is a long term not discussed in the passage.
(E) The property taxes in Stonebridge are significantly lower than those in many larger cities. -Out of scope

GMATNinja
Can you pl clarify that how choice c is not a valid weakened.

The qstn stem says that when sufficient money for infrastructure is not their the government increases the tax amount. This increase in tax amount results in cascading effect which in turn results in more people leaving the town because of tax increases.
In option c, if the amount allocated for maintenance of city infrastructure is increased then the amount should be sufficient and the cascading effect can be stopped.
Since cascading effect has stopped hence people would prefer to stay with marginal tax increase.
Can someone please help how this option is incorrect

Posted from my mobile device

Choice (C) does solve the infrastructure funding problem... but only temporarily.

Implementing the solution suggested in choice (C) gives us adequate infrastructure funding momentarily, but it also requires raising property taxes. We know that "rising property taxes... drive more residents away." So even a small increase in property taxes, as suggested in choice (C), could drive residents away. That would in turn decrease the funding available for infrastructure and cause us to raise taxes once again. That could cause even MORE residents to leave, causing us to raise taxes again, and so on and so on.


Since we are specifically told that rising property taxes drive residents away, we cannot assume that they will decide to stay when there is a small property tax increase. On the contrary, based on the given information, it is more likely that even a small increase would drive some residents away, further compounding the problem.

I hope that helps!
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I thought (D) was an attractive answer when I first attempted this problem. However, after looking back over this problem, I think (D) actually strengthens the argument. If people are moving to a region that includes Stonebridge, then there are two possibilities. (1) Some people that move to that region move to Stonebridge and thus, our problem starts to resolve. Or (2), nobody that moves to that region moves to Stonebridge and thus, you would want to keep taxes low to try to attract those people to Stonebridge.

I didn't like (A) because it didn't solve the problem of an infinite loop of people leaving and property taxes increasing. I guess I was looking for an option that would solve that; though unfortunately, there are none. Even though (A) doesn't solve this infinite loop issue, it definitely weakens the argument. It doesn't shatter the argument and it really doesn't weaken it that much in my opinion. With (A), if you raise taxes you'd have a runaway effect, and if you refrained you'd also have a runaway effect! But it is a point that counts against the conclusion, and it's the only option that raises a point against the conclusion.

Thus, (A) is the correct answer.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION=
A. Correct. This suggests that refraining from raising property taxes could drive
more residents out of Stonebridge than raising them would, and thus would not
help the city avoid the problem the urban planner describes.
B. This does slightly weaken the argument because the grants may still be provided
to maintain certain parts of the infrastructure, even if increased property taxes
drive more residents away. But losing more residents could still make it harder to
raise enough funds to maintain the rest of the city’s infrastructure, as the urban
planner argues.
C. Even if this approach would address the immediate maintenance funding
problem, the small increase in property taxes could still drive more residents
away, forcing additional future tax increases on those who remain, just as the
urban planner suggests.
D. This does slightly weaken the argument, but the residents who will move to the
region might still avoid moving to Stonebridge if the property taxes there are too
high, and those who live in Stonebridge might still move to other cities in the
region.
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- When a city loses population due to migration, property taxes in that city tend to rise. (to maintain the infrastructure).
- Rising property taxes, in turn, drive more residents away, compounding the problem.
- The city of Stonebridge is starting to lose population

Conclusion: The city government should refrain from raising property taxes. (Raising taxes will make more people leave)

What will weaken the conclusion?

(A) If Stonebridge does not raise taxes on its residents to maintain its infrastructure, the city will become much less attractive to live in as that infrastructure decays.

This tells us that if taxes are not raised, it will make the city much less attractive to live in. So people will leave as infra decays. Hence, this says that not raising taxes may not be the right approach. We may not be able to avoid the problem by not raising taxes. Hence, it makes us doubt our conclusion.

(B) Stonebridge at present benefits from grants provided by the national government to help maintain certain parts of its infrastructure.

This doesn't say that raising taxes is required. It gets grants from the Govt. The Govt may keep giving those grants. Not raising taxes does not mean that those grants will stop. It doesn't say what the impact of not raising taxes will be.

(C) If there is a small increase in property taxes in Stonebridge and a slightly larger proportion of total revenue than at present is allocated to infrastructure maintenance, the funding will be adequate for that purpose.

We don't know the impact of "small increase in taxes". Also, we don't know the impact of not being able to maintain infra.

(D) Demographers project that the population of a region that includes Stonebridge will start to increase substantially within the next several years.

We are talking about a region that is included in Stonebridge. We don't know for what percentage of population it accounts.

(E) The property taxes in Stonebridge are significantly lower than those in many larger cities.

We cannot compare Stonebridge with "larger cities".

Answer (A)

VeritasKarishma MentorTutoring

I have trouble spotting main conclusion when there are more than 1 premise markers. Can you help if below approach for spotting conclusion and selecting (A) is correct?


This is because: A premise marker
Conclusion: When a city loses population due to migration, property taxes in that city tend to rise.


Do you agree that this is circular reasoning?
E.g. My song was better than best since it was the best.
But I am not providing correct evidences here:
1. Was my song in tune with the music?
2. Did an audience poll back my singing?
3. Were the criteria wide which a judge would select a winner were fulfilled by me?


Premise marker: Since
Conclusion marker: Therefore
Conclusion: the city government should refrain from raising property taxes.

Now I am in soup since I have two conclusions. To identify main conclusion, I forcefully use because before the statement that I suspect is main conclusion.
So here we go:

Sounds OK to me, I will keep it.

That's absurd. There is no proper link to connect both statements. OUT

Also I could recognize that this is a causal statement.
Cause: city is starting to loose population
Effect: so, do not increase property taxes.

One way to weaken it: If effect occurs, but cause does not occur


Effect: Property taxes not raised.
Cause: City shall still loose population. But what I want is that city should not loose population. So this weakens the claim.

I feel like I made a mess to implement above learning from Powerscore CR bible and not sure if I can mess enough head under exam condition with above approach.
Let me know where I faltered.
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Hello again, adkikani. I agree with most of your approach below. Where I do not agree, I will write a few points.


No, I would not say that this line from the passage exemplifies circular reasoning. Rather, it outlines a snowball effect. An issue occurs and leads to a bigger and bigger problem. In other words, rising property taxes will drive even more residents away, thereby making the infrastructure collapse even worse. This downward spiral could continue until some major change were implemented. Your example above differs in that it does illustrate circular reasoning, rather than a snowball effect.


A small point, but your Effect here is a proposal instead. The effect is, ultimately, the compounding problem that you dismissed earlier. If the city loses its population, property taxes tend to rise, driving more residents away, leaving those who stay behind to shoulder a heavier tax burden, and the area becomes much less desirable to live in all the while.


If the main conclusion is the city government should refrain from raising property taxes, then you have to find a compelling reason for the government to do just the opposite and raise those taxes without that leading to the snowball effect outlined above. As soon as I read choice (A), I thought I would have a hard time disproving it, because it achieves just what we are looking for: the city needs to raise taxes to make the area a more desirable place to live. If more people move into the city because it is a more desirable location, then the infrastructure problem is solved and, more importantly, we have our answer. Choices (B), (D), and (E) do not even address the tax issue, so they are easy to toss aside. As for (C), it outlines a plan that might work for shoring up the infrastructure for the time being, but there is no positive outlook for anything other than the immediate future, and the compounding problem could ultimately bury the city.

I hope that helps. As much as possible, look to keep your approach simple. I think sometimes you do way more work than you need to and get tangled up in the process.

- Andrew
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By focusing on markers, you are losing sight of the argument as a whole. Markers only INDICATE the roles played by various sentences. You must keep the entire argument in mind while deciding what role is played by each sentence.

Two premise markers does not mean two conclusions.
This argument has only one conclusion - Stonebridge government should refrain from raising property taxes.
This conclusion is the reason the author writes the argument. He wants to tell his readers his opinion - that Stonebridge govt should not raise taxes. He gives reasons by starting off by giving a general trend (When a city loses population due to migration, property taxes in that city tend to rise.) Then he tells us why we see this trend (it's a vicious circle: people leave -> higher taxes, higher taxes -> more people leave).
And that is why, he says, we should not increase taxes in Stonebridge (the conclusion).

Passage analysis


Urban planner: When a city loses population due to migration, property taxes in that city tend to rise.

According to an urban planner:
If people migrate from a city, such that it causes a reduction in population, the property taxes in that city show an increase.


This is because there are then fewer residents paying to maintain an infrastructure that was designed to support more people.


This happens because after the population decreases due to migration, there are fewer people left to pay for the maintenance of the city’s infrastructure.
This infrastructure was built on a scale to support more people than are left behind in the city.
We can infer that the burden of maintaining the same infrastructure now falls on fewer people than before.


Rising property taxes, in turn, drive more residents away, compounding the problem. Since the city of Stonebridge is starting to lose population, the city government should therefore refrain from raising property taxes.


What happens next is:
The rise in the property taxes makes more people leave the city, further increasing the problem.
The people of Stonebridge are leaving the city.
The government should not raise the property taxes.
We can infer that if the government raises the property taxes, more people will leave the city.


Conclusion

The city government should not raise property taxes because this will drive away more

residents from a city already losing population due to migration.



Pre-thinking
Weaken Framework
Now per our understanding of the passage, let’s first write down the weaken framework:

What new information will help us believe less in the urban planner’s conclusion that


The city government should not raise property taxes because this will drive away more residents from city already losing population due to migration.


Given that
With loss of population due to migration, a city’s property taxes rise.
With fewer residents paying to maintain the same infrastructure, the per head property tax burden increases.
These rising property taxes lead to further loss of population.
Thought Process

Understand the author’s reasoning

The urban planner presents a cause and effect cycle.

Cause: Migration

Effect: property taxes in the city go up because fewer people are paying the tax burden for the same infrastructure that was there for a larger population.





Cause: property taxes in the city go up because fewer people are paying the tax burden for the same infrastructure that was there for a larger population

Effect: more residents driven away





Cause: more residents driven away

Effect: an even further rise in property tax

Because of this, the urban planner urges the government of Stonebridge, a city starting to lose its population, not to raise the property tax for fear of losing more and more residents.

The solution would seem to be that the property taxes be lowered to contain the reduction in population(flux)

But then how would the existing infrastructure costs be borne by the city with lower revenues from property taxes?

Weakener

It seems then the infrastructure would suffer with limited revenues to maintain it.

And if sufficient funds are not spent on the infrastructure of the city, then that itself might turn out to be more counter-productive to containing the population flux.

So, if an option provides information to the above effect, then that will weaken the urban planner’s recommendation to not to raise the property taxes.


Answer Choices

Option A - This is very closely aligned with our pre-thinking weakened CORRECT

Option B - But what when people start leaving the city. The grants along with the reduced revenue from taxes may not be enough to maintain the existing infrastructure. This does not weaken the planner’s argument that taxes be reduced.


Option C - The problem is increase in taxes, so even a small increase might drive people away. Moreover, the reduced revenue may not allow further allocation to infrastructure maintenance.


Option D - Future projections may or may not materialize. Till then a lot of damage might be caused to the existing infrastructure

Option E - This leaves scope for the migrators to move to other cities with lower taxe
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Hey Kartzool!

Thought Process

Understand the author’s reasoning

The urban planner presents a cause and effect cycle.

Cause: Migration

Effect: property taxes in the city go up because fewer people are paying the tax burden for the same infrastructure that was there for a larger population.




Cause: property taxes in the city go up because fewer people are paying the tax burden for the same infrastructure that was there for a larger population

Effect: more residents driven away



Cause: more residents driven away

Effect: an even further rise in property tax

Because of this, the urban planner urges the government of Stonebridge, a city starting to lose its population, not to raise the property tax for fear of losing more and more residents.

The solution would seem to be that the property taxes be lowered to contain the reduction in population(flux)

But then how would the existing infrastructure costs be borne by the city with lower revenues from property taxes?

Weakener

It seems then the infrastructure would suffer with limited revenues to maintain it.

And if sufficient funds are not spent on the infrastructure of the city, then that itself might turn out to be more counter-productive to containing the population flux.

So, if an option provides information to the above effect, then that will weaken the urban planner’s recommendation to not to raise the property taxes.

Why is option B incorrect

Option B says - Stonebridge at present benefits from grants provided by the national government to help maintain certain parts of its infrastructure.

But what when people start leaving the city. The grants along with the reduced revenue from taxes may not be enough to maintain the existing infrastructure. This does not weaken the planner’s argument that taxes be reduced.

Thus, this is not the correct choice.
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3. Aspect) What does "larger" mean? In terms of "population" or "area"? The heart of the passage is about population. Therefore, IMO, without making sure of what exactly "larger" means, one cannot say whether it weakens the conclusion.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Maldonado, I think your analysis in this case is resting too heavily on topic.

In other words, while we aren't sure whether "larger" refers directly to population or area, in eliminating choice (E) for that reason, we would be eliminating a choice only because we are not sure that one qualifier in that choice, "larger," is directly related to the main topic of the passage.

That's not a great reason to eliminate a choice.

We're much better off considering the implications of the fact that property taxes are lower in Stonebridge, regardless of whether "larger" refers to population or area.

In general, in relying heavily on topic in choosing among CR answer choices, we can end up missing what really matters.
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