Seems like a close cousin of the effect described here, the "drip drip drip" effect, where problems that arise as a sequence of discrete events and that are easy to solve with a simple top down approach get solved, while problems that are more serious in total, but that are continuous is nature and require a more distributed bottom up approach to solve, don't.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/7/5/heres-why-we-re...