While the zoo director concedes that the city should reduce its spending, she argues that reducing the Zoo's funding as planned is "false economy" — i.e., it won't be a useful way to save money. She provides three reasons to support this claim: first, the zoo budget is less than 1 percent of the city's deficit; second, if the zoo's budget is cut, it will close, but the zoo brings in tourists and tax dollars; and third, the zoo enhances the city's culture and draws businesses to relocate there.

We can tell the first sentence, about the city needing to reduce its spending, is a concession because the author pivots away from it to make a contrary point: "Nevertheless..." What follows the "nevertheless" is the author's main point: cutting the zoo's budget in half is "false economy." We know this because each of the three following sentences provides support for that claim.