Argument 2. Central Plaza

The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner.
"Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central Plaza store owners believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skateboard users in the plaza. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.



The author recommends that Central Plaza prohibit skateboarding to increase its sales. The author claims that the decrease in sales is due to the increase in skateboarding. This may be a specious argument that calls for answers to some critical questions. 

All questions ultimately lead to the central question: Did skateboarding really cause the decline in business? 

The author notes that sales in Central Plaza "steadily decreased" while skateboarding "increased dramatically" in the past two years. Just how did these figures coincide? Perhaps the sales gradually and slowly decreased over the whole span of two years, and skateboarding was a surge in the last month or so of this same period. In this case, it would be unreasonable to make the connection that skateboarding was the determining factor in decreasing sales, and thus the author's recommendation would fail. 

On a few aspects, the author assumes a causation where the relationship simply may be one of correlation. The author needs to provide tangible evidence that increased skateboarding directly detracted people from shopping in the area. He may provide surveys of shoppers that ask them how they feel about the skateboarders crowding the Plaza, how their presence is affecting the shoppers' inclination to shop at the stores, how their perception of the Plaza has changed, etc. 

Is it the skateboarders who vandalized and littered in the Plaza, or did they somehow indirectly affect others to vandalize and litter? The author provides no evidence that skateboarders vandalized the property. He may provide surveillance clips, if it were indeed their deed. Skateboarders may not have to do anything with the people who are vandalizing (perhaps a gang moved into town). Maybe teenage delinquents chose this Plaza to hang out with their skateboarding friends. Another possibility is that increased skateboarding indirectly affected littering by rendering the mood that let people think the Plaza is a place to do so. Perhaps people associate skateboarders with delinquency, and think it is permissible in the area to engage in those acts for themselves. The latter possibility of skateboarders indirectly affecting people's perception of the Plaza as a place to litter and vandalize may be more difficult to capture, however, it is a critical question that must be answered to weigh the author's recommendation. 

In sum, the author must provide tangible evidence to answer whether the effect is due to causation or simple correlation. If there is significant proof that increased skateboarding affected decreased sales, the author's recommendation to prohibit skateboarding to recover sales may produce the intended outcome.