Green Transitions, Grey Injustices: Sustainability Megaprojects and New Peripheralities in Tirana, Belgrade, and Skopje

This paper examines how “green” and “smart” urban megaprojects in post‑socialist Balkan capitals reshape core–periphery relations and patterns of spatial injustice. Focusing on Tirana, Belgrade, and Skopje, it asks whether current urban green transition initiatives help overcome peripheralization in these cities, or whether they instead produce new cores of privilege and new peripheries of exclusion. The core research question is, under what conditions do urban green transition projects in post‑socialist capitals act as drivers of new core–periphery configurations and spatial injustice? Conceptually, the paper brings the classic core–periphery paradigm (Wallerstein 1974; Krugman 1991) into dialogue with spatial justice (Harvey 1973; Soja 2010) and sustainability transitions research (Geels 2002; Swilling & Annecke 2012). It draws in particular on the “Just Sustainability Transitions” (JUSTRAs) debate (Avelino et al. 2019), arguing that the distributional, procedural, and recognitional dimensions of justice are central to understanding how green transitions unfold in European “internal peripheries." Empirically, the paper compares three emblematic projects: (1) Tirana’s TIRANA2030 plan and associated “green” public‑space and mobility schemes; (2) the Belgrade Waterfront megaproject, marketed as a compact, “15‑minute city”‑style district (cf. Moreno et al. 2021); and (3) post‑Skopje 2014 green planning initiatives in a city facing extreme air pollution. The analysis draws on policy and planning documents, visual and spatial examination of project locations and surrounding land‑use change, and secondary qualitative material (interviews, protest narratives, NGO reports) generated in ongoing doctoral research. Preliminary findings suggest a recurring pattern of what the paper terms “green peripheralization." Sustainability discourses and EU‑oriented modernization frames are used to justify large investments in highly visible central areas, creating new “sustainable cores” for investors, tourists, and middle‑class residents. At the same time, low‑income, informal, and minority communities are displaced, pushed to poorly serviced peripheries, or see their everyday access to central public spaces reduced. Weak procedural safeguards, opaque public‑private partnerships, and limited recognition of informal and semi‑formal urban practices are key mechanisms through which these outcomes are produced. The paper contributes to debates on core–periphery dynamics and green transitions by showing how, in post‑socialist contexts marked by institutional fragility and housing precarity, generic “best practice” models can intensify rather than repair peripheralization. It proposes a typology of “green peripheralization” mechanisms and argues for justice‑centered, context‑sensitive transition frameworks for Europe’s post‑socialist and lagging regions.