Governing post-pandemic territories: in search of non-standard territorial governance approaches

Claims towards a paradigm shift in how societies are organised in space, formulated in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, faded away. Nevertheless, the pandemic contributed to ongoing changes in how people settle, live and work, calling for a shift from traditional territorial governance models to softer approaches able to tackle non-standard geographies. This commentary reflects on trends boosted by the pandemic and discusses functional approaches introduced at the EU level. We argue that the post-pandemic recovery should be seen as a ‘window of opportunity’ to consolidate innovative territorial governance instruments into a more coherent framework for place-based action.