Tirana gets a makeover, at the risk of “losing its soul”

In recent years, a host of development projects have transformed Tirana, the Albanian capital, changing the face of many neighborhoods: the city center is teeming with cranes and scaffolding; everywhere, brand-new buildings stand side by side with much older, often dilapidated ones. Today, the city center generally exudes modernity, even if these changes are not always viewed favorably by residents, as new construction drives up rents, leading to a process of gentrification.

Typically, such transformations, which denature working-class neighborhoods, are rather gradual, with the opening of new, more affluent shops and restaurants, and the settlement of an increasingly affluent population. In Tirana, the process is both faster and more massive. The city's metamorphosis is less spontaneous, more calculated: towers, residential complexes, and commercial spaces are springing up everywhere, replacing the existing ones.

“As soon as you leave the city for a week or two, you come back and find a new construction site popping up out of nowhere,” says Franziska Tschinderle, an Austrian journalist who lives in Tiran.