Some smart solutions towards rapid urbanization in Albanian cities

Abstract

In the last two decades, Albania is going through the most dynamic economic, urban, and industrial transformations in its history. Economic opportunities in Albanian’s cities are fueling rural to urban migration on a massive scale. The resettlement is thought to be one of the largest sustained migrations the country has ever seen, involving the relocation of a lot people from rural to urban areas each year.

For the last past decades, Albania transportation system was a combination of bicycles, mass transit, and walking. Today, with a growing fleet of privately owned vehicles and low density development, Albania’s is quickly becoming a car-dependent society.

Meanwhile the growth of Albania’s economy has improved the living standarts, swelling city populations, increased housing floor area, and the trend toward automobile dependency, have contributed to a host of environmental, health, and security concerns. Urban air and water quality are deteriorating, and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing rapidly. Cars flood city roads, causing severe traffic congestion and jeopardizing community livability.

How Albania’s cities can manage the massive influx of new residents in the next two decades will set the framework for growth over the next years and beyond. The current urbanization pattern of sprawling, auto-dependent development poses a threat to public health, quality of life, the economy, and national security, and also strains natural and social resources. Albania most probably can correct its inefficient use of resources and avoid environmental deterioration by pursuing a “smart growth” pathway, which offers an integrated approach to development. This paper aims to propose some smart strategies for the solutions towards a rapid urbanization of Albanian cities, mostly of the Tirana capital.