OECD Regions and Cities at a Glance shows how regions and cities are progressing toward stronger economies, better lives for people, and more inclusive societies. The report provides a comparative picture of trends in economic growth, productivity and entrepreneurship across regions and metropolitan areas. It also assesses how people’s well-being is changing across regions, both within and across countries, including progress on closing gender gaps. This edition updates more than 40 region-by-region indicators to measure disparities within countries and their evolution since the turn of the millennium. The report covers all OECD member countries and, where data are available, Brazil, Peru, the Russian Federation, Tunisia and South Africa.

Current global megatrends – such as the digital transformation, climate change, migration or ageing – are likely to have a major impact on people’s lives. Similar to the effects of globalisation that have characterised the last two decades, the consequences of these megatrends can be highly diverse not only across countries, but also across regions and cities within a given country. This differential impact will add to the already heightened concern of policy makers about disparities related to jobs and income, and thus ultimately well-being, across regions and cities. Economic differences within countries are indeed already cause for concern: within OECD countries, the most productive region is on average twice as productive as the least productive one. Fundamental changes to traditional local economic structures that, for example, the digital transformation will cause could further exacerbate such regional discrepancies.

The maturing economic recovery from the global financial crisis has coincided with signs of a more widespread decrease in economic disparities within countries. Between 2000 and 2007, regional disparities within countries had increased. At the same time, low-income countries were catching up economically. This resulted in a situation – at the beginning of the global financial crisis – where disparities within countries surpassed those between countries. This trend has reversed since 2011, with disparities within countries falling significantly, especially in the last few years. The reversal occurred first in non-European countries, spreading only more recently to Europe where economic recovery had been delayed. In spite of these welcome improvements, regional disparities remain high in several respects.

Regions and Cities at a Glance 2018 provides a comprehensive assessment of how regions and cities across the OECD are progressing towards stronger economies, a higher quality of life for their citizens and more inclusive societies. The publication provides a unique comparative picture in a number of aspects connected to economic development and living standards across regions and cities in OECD and in some non-OECD countries. More specifically, the report documents trends in GDP per capita, productivity, jobs and entrepreneurship (). The impact of such trends on people’s lives is addressed in , which provides an updated and extended assessment of well-being across all OECD regions using consistent indicators about several aspects that matter for people’s lives, including material conditions (income, jobs and housing) and quality of life (health, education, access to services, environment, safety, civic engagement and governance).