LSAT 139 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q1

RC Question 1 Explanation

DISCUSSION: The main point is that the new urbanists think that legally mandated sprawl hurts community values. We should change zoning laws to allow dense walkable communities to be built, in the style of early 20th century communities (lines 36-42).

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1. This just repeats the opponents’ critique on lines 46-50.
2. When I first read this, I thought this was correct. But then I read D and saw it was better. This is a good example of why you should look at all the answers before moving on.
    
   As for why this is wrong:
    
   1. Inhibiting social interaction is only mentioned on lines 20-26. This point is only a portion of the new Urbanists’ critique that sprawls hurts social values. Paragraph 2 mentions other anti-social behavior and specific consequences of the lack of interaction between people (lines 25-26: ill prepared, line 45: mutual respect. This implies people in sprawl don’t develop respect)
    
   2. There are no specific zoning reforms mentioned. Instead, New Urbanists recommend early 20th century style neighborhoods. See lines 36-42. Presumably the New Urbanists’ want zoning laws to be changed to allow these neighborhoods, but the specific changes required might vary by city or state.
3. The new urbanists didn’t make any statistical claims about happiness across the population. And this ignores the zoning law element of the new urbanists’ critique.
4. CORRECT. This matches my summary even better than B.
5. It wasn’t just traffic policies. Lines 10-14 say that zoning laws require businesses, homes and schools to be built separate from each other. This was done “for reasons involving the flow of automobile traffic”, but that doesn’t make it a mere traffic policy.