Public attention to problems rises and fades in predictable stages.
Downs's 1972 stages: pre-problem, alarmed discovery, realisation of cost, decline of interest, post-problem limbo. The third stage does the damage — attention fades precisely when the price becomes clear.
In practice
- A housing shortage is discovered, costed, deprioritised and forgotten in five years, and the shortage is unchanged throughout.
- A privacy scandal produces alarm, a realisation that the fix would break the business model, and quiet in eighteen months.