Urban Change and Social Cohesion in Post-Socialist Contexts: An Empirical and Theoretical Assessment

Abstract

This paper examines an underexplored dimension of the social impacts of gentrification, namely the neighbourhood social cohesion, in Tirana, the post-socialist capital of Albania, which experienced a rapid development during the last decade. Based on a survey with 201 residents of neighbourhoods with distinct levels of urban transformation, it explores the correlation between gentrification pressures, such as increasing housing prices, commercialization, tourism pressure and intensification of redevelopment and social cohesion. The latter is measured with the help of a Social Cohesion Index (SCI) relying on four dimensions: trust, belonging, interaction and attachment to place. The regression and exploratory mediation analyses are applied to assess statistical associations and indirect pathways while also exploring the intermediary effect of cultural displacement. We found that housing affordability is the strongest predictor of declines in social cohesion, and that cultural displacement appears to play a mediating role in the relationship of urban redevelopment intensity to social cohesion. Socio-economic groups show different perceptions of urban change. Long-term and lower-income residents are more likely to perceive urban change negatively and higher-income residents tend to regard urban renewal more favourably. This paper contributes to the growing literature on post-socialist cities by developing a context-sensitive analytical framework for understanding gentrification in rapidly transforming urban contexts. More generally, it highlights how perception-based mechanisms connect macro-level urban transformation with meso-level neighbourhood dynamics and micro-level social outcomes. It therefore helps to reconceptualize gentrification as a condensed and perception-mediated process.