Looking through (and beyond) a truly total territorial fact. Notes on the pandemics and the city

The Covid-19 crisis has shown the spatial nature and implications of pandemics, urging to revive old debates and instruct reflections upon emerging urban issues. By relying on early scientific literature, grey literature and evidence from news reports, this contribution discusses some broad issues in relation to the spatial and scalar factors and implications of the pandemic, and the response to it: the socio-spatial features of its spread; the crisis of urban development models based on the experiential economy and commuting metropolization; the emergence of a new balance between relocalization and dematerialized connectivity; the effects of the spread of remote work. In conclusion, the paper offers some insights on relevant research issues for spatial planners and urbanists.