Retaining indigenous populations is vital to the sustainable development and conservation of historic urban areas. However, little attention has been paid to Chinese conservation planning in an effort to safeguard indigenous people. This paper investigates population change and residential mobility in Chinese historic urban areas by applying demographic analysis and regression models to survey data collected in the Ping-Jiang Historic Quarter. Results indicate that few relocation behaviors are a result of the welfare housing policy and property ownership. However, residents’ intentions to move have increased, due to declining living conditions and tourism development in recent years. Classified by property ownership, public housing tenants and rented housing migrants were more willing to move, while private housing owners preferred to stay. Accordingly, there have been increasing trends of aging, poverty growth and population displacement, epitomized by the public housing population. Assessing planning impacts, welfare policy reduced residential mobility while undermining residents’ self-reliance to maintain their own houses. Without substantial social participation and community support, top-down conservation planning could only slow, rather than reverse, the trend of socio-cultural decline.