Spatial Planning and Heritage Preservation in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Ghana’s Former Capital City.

African cities are expanding rapidly intensifying tension between heritage conservation and urban development. However, the role of spatial planning in conservation remains underexplored. This study investigates how spatial planning influences heritage preservation in Cape Coast, Ghana’s former capital, by examining factors shaping site location, planning framework effectiveness, and socioeconomic threats. Drawing from a mixed design, findings reveal that the spatial distribution of heritage sites reflects strategic decisions rooted in geographical advantages, military security, economic interests, and sociocultural considerations, rather than historical coincidence. Although Ghana's statutory planning framework recognizes heritage conservation, implementation remains procedural rather than transformative. The study found that planning legislation provides limited operational guidance and inadequate integration of heritage into land-use planning aside weak enforcement, favoring urban development and internationally recognized sites over local assets. Preservation is constrained by unregulated urbanization, competing land-use pressures, inadequate funding, weak institutional coordination, limited community participation, ownership conflicts, poor sanitation, and tourist harassment. Despite these constraints, stakeholders perceive heritage sites as multidimensional assets generating cultural identity, historical continuity, tourism revenue, employment, and local economic development. This study contributes to heritage scholarship by demonstrating that effective conservation in emerging economies requires moving beyond monument protection to heritage-responsive spatial planning that integrates conservation into statutory planning, land-use regulation, participatory governance, and sustainable urban development. It proposes a framework centered on strengthened legislation, mandatory Heritage Impact Assessments, committed institutions, sustainable funding, and integrated community-based planning to ensure the long-term resilience of heritage landscapes.