Perceived Governance Conditions and Sustainable Urban Heritage Land Management in Hanoi

Hanoi’s historic urban areas face the challenge of accommodating urban change while conserving heritage and maintaining compatible land uses. This study examines whether perceived incorporation of conservation into routine decisions helps explain the associations between governance conditions and sustainable urban heritage land-management performance. An in-person, cross-sectional survey of 200 purposively recruited stakeholders in early 2026 used 33 seven-point indicators. Ordinary least-squares path analysis of standardised composite scores examined planning coordination, stakeholder participation, digital monitoring capacity, conservation integration, and perceived performance. The three governance conditions were positively associated with conservation integration (β = 0.319, 0.264, and 0.314, respectively; all p < 0.001). In the performance equation, conservation integration had the largest numerical conditional coefficient (β = 0.416, p < 0.001), and the model explained 53.4% of performance-score variance. Joint-significance tests were consistent with positive indirect associations through integration. An algebraic decomposition of the fitted regressions indicated an additional explained variance of approximately 9.3 percentage points when integration was included. The findings distinguish perceived governance capacity from its incorporation into decisions and suggest priorities for coordinated review, stakeholder feedback, and the use of monitoring information. Purposive sampling, overlapping item content, and cross-sectional self-reports limit generalisation and preclude causal interpretation.