Durrës After Transition: Urban Identity at the Edge of Time, Tourism, and Transformation

Durrës has been a city in constant transformation since the 1990s, particularly following the fall of communism in Albania. Uncontrolled construction, particularly in the tourist zones, especially along the coastal zone extending to Kavaja, was triggered by this important historical turning point. Throughout this entire period, extending from the 1990s up to the present day, the city has experienced an uncontrollable and ongoing era of urban transition, losing some essential aspects of its historic identity and gradually becoming a hybrid city that combines elements of tourism, informality, and endangered history. Once recognised widely as a clear representation of a city with a history spanning thousands of years, Durrës is now increasingly a site of conflict between urban expansion, cultural heritage, mass tourism, and real estate investment. All these transformations have significantly and visibly affected the character of the city, overshadowing its historical core and its valuable cultural heritage, thereby deeply impacting its image and the values it embodies. Despite the fact that Durrës has undergone substantial physical and social changes over the years, it has consistently managed to attract a large number of tourists and investors from around the world. Through a variety of targeted and multifaceted marketing strategies intended to highlight and promote the city's attractive features, this phenomenon has effectively sparked major reactions on social media platforms. However, this promotional approach tends to overshadow the deeper and underlying issues that the city is currently facing, positioning it as an urban space in a transitional state between modernity and postmodernity. The aim of the research is to carefully analyse how the city's physical and symbolic image has changed over time to reflect its current situation and what this transformation ultimately represents in relation to the broad social and economic context in which it is taking place.