#3 - Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=10953)

The correct answer choice is (D)

Due to the general nature of this question, the method of elimination is likely to prove useful—any answer choice that cannot be proven by the passage will be incorrect.

Answer choice (A): Although the amount of time people spend driving is clearly a factor that affects community life, the New Urbanists never stated that it is the primary factor affecting a neighborhood’s conduciveness to the maintenance of civility.

Answer choice (B): Whether citizens can influence the long-term effects of zoning policies is not an issue discussed in the passage.

Answer choice (C): This is the Opposite answer. The New Urbanists are unlikely to view commuting to urban centers as unnecessary for finding an easily accessible job. On the contrary: suburban residents are forced to drive to their places of employment, often in heavy traffic.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. On one hand, the spatial configuration of suburban neighborhoods influences the attitudes of those who live in them (it makes them antisocial, as discussed in lines 30-35). On the other hand, suburban sprawl is influenced by the attitudes of residents who value their autonomy and independence (lines 46-50).

Answer choice (E): This answer choice contains an exaggeration. The New Urbanists never argued that personal values should not affect the ways in which neighborhoods are designed. They merely warn that these values should not be absolute (lines 55-59).

[lsatprep1215]

Hi, I feel like D is the right answer but did not select it because I am a little bit confuse by "is influenced by the attitudes of
those who live in them". From line 46-50 it is the opinion from opponents of New Urbanism but not New Urbanists.So how do I know New Urbanists will agree on this?

[Claire Horan]

Hi LSATPrep1215,

Keep reading after Lines 46-50. In Line 51, the New Urbanists "don't question people's right to their own values...." Then, Lines 55-59 show the New Urbanists' response to their opponents' claim that, basically, people choose to live in places based on their values. In responding, the New Urbanists accept that claim, but "suggest that we should take a more critical view of these values." The statement that New Urbanists are critical of the values associated with individual mobility, consumption, wealth, etc., shows that they don't disagree with their critics that suburbanites do, to some extent, want these things and choose suburbs in order to have them.

Good question, and good job reading carefully! You were right that Lines 46-50 express the opponents' views.

[lsatprep1215]

Understood, thanks!

[Tajadas]

Hi, I still don't really understand why D is correct, as I too had issues with the "is influenced by the attitudes of those who live in them" part. When I read "migration to sprawling suburbs is an expression of people's legitimate desire to secure the enjoyment and personal mobility provided by the automobile and the lifestyle that it makes possible", I didn't take that to mean that people were influencing spatial configuration of suburban neighborhoods, only that people were moving there.

I even eliminated D because I read "zoning laws usually dictate that suburban homes, stores, businesses, and schools be built in separate areas" and "Suburban housing subdivisions... usually contain homes identical not only in appearance but also in price, resulting in a de facto economic segregation of residential neighborhoods". It seemed to me that external factors are responsible for the configuration of the suburbs and people were moving there because it aligns with their values, not that the people were influencing the suburbs.

[Robert Carroll]

Tajadas,

"Zoning laws" are not really "external factors" here in the way necessary for your argument against answer choice (D). Note around line 54 or so: "these values and of the sprawl conducive zoning and subdivision policies that reflect them." Zoning and subdivision policies are here envisioned as reflecting values, so it's not fair to say that they are arbitrary, external factors that merely happen to align with people's preferences. They are instead partly a method of enforcing those preferences, so, if "external", they still exist because people want things that way, and want to move into and reside in neighborhoods that have those policies.

Note also that eliminating answer choice (D) is more than just eliminating that answer - it also means selecting another answer instead. But what other answer could you not eliminate much, much more decisively than answer choice (D)?

Robert Carroll