Better Before Worse or Worse Before Better

Another characteristic of complex feedback systems is that policy changes can frequently make them better before making them worse, or worse before making them better. Again, this is due to the long run effects of feedback. Ignoring a system's long run feedback effects can lead to policies that yield unintended consequences (see Figure 20 below). 

Consider the example of congestion in a city's expressway system. If the policy response is to significantly expand the capacity of the system, the short run result is a lessening of congestion. But, as information about the improved, even pleasant-to-use, expressway system begins to affect longer run decisions such as where people choose to live (e.g., people move to the suburbs and commute to work via the improved expressway system), the congestion can return and even be worse than before. Of course, the effect can occur in the opposite direction as, closing down some of a city's expressway to create congestion can, in the long term, cause people to resettle near the city and/or to build and use public transportation.