Sustaining Vernacular Heritage: Challenges and Strategies for Residential Conservation in Suzhou’s Pingjiang Historical Block

Despite its status as a heritage model, Suzhou’s Pingjiang Historic Block suffers from a significant “conservation deficit”. The current study quantifies this decay and identifies its socio-economic drivers through a field survey of 517 traditional residences and a multivariate analysis of 188 resident households. The results reveal widespread degradation, including 32% roof damage and 55% unauthorized window replacements. Binary logistic regression identifies institutional status (hukou) as the decisive predictor of housing integrity (β = −0.544). Non-local migrants, trapped by tenure insecurity, exhibit significantly higher damage rates (53.5%). In contrast, local residents, driven by an “Aging Trap” and thermal comfort needs, are the primary drivers of adaptive window replacements (OR = 2.71). These findings indicate that current static policies are failing to address structural misalignments between preservation mandates and resident reality. The study advocates for a shift towards “Adaptive Integrity”, proposing tenure integration for migrants and technical retrofitting support for the aging local population to reconcile heritage protection with contemporary living needs.