During the past thirty years, post-socialist countries experienced a radical change in their economic and political system, the privatization of public assets hit hardly society's socioeconomic structure. One of the main tangible effects has been the transition of the property regimes in residential housing. Passing from a State-led economic system to a free market regime has accentuated housing precarity. The real estate market exploded, rising housing and rental prices, increasing housing inequalities and accentuating poor living conditions. In this panorama, foreign investments in the real estate sphere, in particular those from Western Europe, played a crucial role in shaping the new economic relations, connections and dependencies. Repeating what happened in Southern Europe during the 70s (Hadjimichalis, 2017), during the 90s, Eastern Europe became the spatial outlet to absorb the surplus capital of the central European economy. The unequal relationship between central and peripheral Europe has been the core of European integration (Pósfai, Gál and Nagy, 2018), activating what has been called “peripheral financialization” (Bohle, 2018; Pósfai, Gál and Nagy, 2018; Bródy and Pósfai, 2020; Mikuš, 2022).
The article aims to look closely at Tirana, Albania as a “European periphery” through the lenses of housing political economy. The capital city is facing an extensive urban change, also because of the forthcoming annexation to the European Union. Private national and international capital, as well as European funds, are financing this transition, and the material outcomes are particularly evident in the real estate sphere. Starting from the contested area of “5 Maji”, where the ‘informal’ settlement clashes with a new urban development project, this article delves into the growing tension surrounding the transformation of Tirana into a new ‘European capital’, highlighting the far-reaching consequences and complex repercussions of such urban shift.
