Regional Science Policy & Practice (RSPP)

Call for Papers for a Special Issue on:

Pandemics, Location and Mobility

Submission of Titles and Abstracts to: Louafi Bouzouina, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., before September 30, 2021, with feedback before October 7, 2021.

Submission of complete papers to: https://rsaiconnect.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17577802, for the Special Issue on: Pandemics, Location and Mobility until December 31, 2021, with foreseen publication of accepted papers online in 2022, and the special issue compiled before December 2022. Contact for details This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Motivation and features

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on human activities around the world. Mobility, the vehicle of social interaction par excellence, was the first sector to be affected, given its close and critical link with the spread of the pandemic. The consequences for mobility and the subsequent limitations of the range of movements continue today at variable spatial scales, according to the progress on vaccination programs and the health indicators/dashboard of the moment. Clearly, the links are complex and the causalities are at this stage difficult to establish.

This structural pattern has had an impact on mobility practices at international, regional and local levels, changing the volume, geography and modes of travel used. International travel has fallen drastically. Public transport has been penalized in relation to individual modes, especially the car, although walking and cycling are increasing in some cities, also benefiting from new urban planning policies (tactical urbanism measures). The COVID-19 pandemic also seems to be having an impact on the long-run location of households and businesses, which is likely to change urban forms.

The consideration of accessibility for mobility in times of pandemic and the return to the prominence of concepts such as the "quarter-hour city" is probably not inconsistent with the hypothesis of a rising popularity of peri-urbanization. Periods of containment have been conducive to a renewed interest in single-family homes and the attractiveness of out-of-city areas. The development of digital technology and the possibility of working from home, although they create social divide, are facilitating factors. Large-scale experimentation with telecommuting has led some companies to review their real estate and location strategies with a view to reducing office costs.

This Special issue of RSPP welcomes contributions that address all aspects of pandemic-related effects on location and mobility, including:

• The role of mobility on the spread of COVID-19 pandemic
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mobility behavior
• COVID-19 pandemic and household location choices
• COVID-19 pandemic and firm location strategies
• The impact of teleworking on long-term travel behavior & location choice
• The impact of E-commerce on shopping trips & logistics organization
• Location, mobility and digital divide
• Land use and transport policies during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Pandemics and resilient cities & regions
• Social interaction and the ‘new mobility’
• Urban planning and policy in a post-pandemic world

The RSPP Guest Editor for the Special Issue on: Pandemics, Location and Mobility is:

Louafi BOUZOUINA

University of Lyon, France

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Visiting professor, Open University, The Netherlands

Addendum

Authors whose Abstracts have been preselected for the Special Issue of RSPP will be invited for presentation of their draft paper at a workshop in Ponta Delgado in the Azores on November 1-2, 2021, with a financial support for a few days accommodation.