The Human-Scale Systems Framework™ explains why complex systems succeed or fail. By balancing individual agency, local authority, and global standards, the framework provides a practical way to understand how sociotechnical systems evolve—and how they can be redesigned to remain aligned with the humans who must live and work inside them.

Why do some systems last for generations while others quietly fall apart? In the opening preface to Build to Last, Ashley Karr introduces the Human-Scale Systems™ perspective and explores how the tools, organizations, and technologies we build slowly drift toward failure. Understanding why that drift happens is the first step toward designing systems—at home, at work, and in society—that actually endure.