The U.S. Cluster Mapping Portal has soft-launched its Region Comparison Tool, which will allow users to directly compare different regions (States, Economic Areas, Metro/Micropolitan Statistical Areas, and Counties) across various clusters and indicators. See below for a walkthrough of the process of creating and saving a custom region comparison.

To use the Region Comparison Tool, first go to our Region Dashboard and select your first region for comparison. To follow along with this example, choose Massachusetts. At the upper right-hand side of the Massachusetts Region Dashboard, you will see a button labeled, "Compare Region". Click on this button and enter the name of the region that you'd like to compare against Massachusetts. In this example, choose California.

The comparison will then be created with a default name and several default clusters and indicators. Using the "Edit Comparison" button, you can save your comparison under a unique name, add regions for comparison, and add or edit the clusters and indicators used.

Once you've saved your new region comparison, it will be assigned a unique URL that you can bookmark or share. Please note: if you do not give a unique name to your comparison, it will still be saved and accessible from your user profile. However, it will be overwritten the next time you create a new comparison, as the new comparison will share the default name and URL.

Once you've customized the regions, clusters, and indicators for comparison, scroll down to compare cluster employment, job creation, and wages by year. Further down the page, you will also see comparisons of specific indicators by region.

As this tool is still new, there may be upcoming changes and challenges. Please let us know if you have any feedback or questions.