Europe and its Territories

Because of the restrictions on mobility and the increased use of teleworking that have accompanied it, the Covid pandemic, which has been raging in the world for almost two years, has significant consequences for the location of jobs and economic activity. It is difficult as yet to gauge whether the desire, expressed at times by a section of the workforce, to leave the big cities for mid-sized towns or for the countryside, will have effects — and effects of a lasting nature — but many observers take the view that the current period will have an impact on land-use planning in France and many other EU member states. In this context and even though several European countries had already before the pandemic set about reviewing how they are organized regionally, Jean-François Drevet sums up the issues which the European Cohesion Policy and other actors in land-use planning are currently confronting or will have to confront in the near future.