Compare locations
Select two or more states, metros, counties, or cities in Explore to see them side by side: a compact panel in the right rail, or a full comparison screen with a metric-by-metric table and best-value highlighting.
Before you start
- Comparison lives inside Explore, not as its own sidebar item. There is no standalone Compare screen; you build a comparison by selecting locations on the Explore map, table, or grid at whichever level you're viewing (State, Metro, County, or City).
- You need at least two selected locations at the same level before a comparison panel appears. See Explore a location for how selection works at each level.
Steps
Select locations to compare
- At State and County level, click a location on the map or its row in the table or grid. Each click adds to your selection; clicking a second, third, and so on location keeps building the set instead of replacing it.
- At Metro level, tick the checkbox on a metro's row in the table, or click a bubble on the map or an entry in the Top 5 Metros card; either way adds it to the selection. Metro selection is capped at 5.
- At City level, tick the checkbox on a city's row in the grid. This is a separate action from clicking a city to open its detail panel: the checkbox controls what's in the comparison, while clicking a row just opens that one city's details. City selection is capped at 5; trying to check a sixth shows "Compare holds up to 5 cities — remove one first."
Once you have 2 or more locations selected, a Compare button appears in the toolbar and the right-hand rail turns into the comparison panel described below, at every level. At City level, if a location's detail panel is open in the right rail, click Compare in the toolbar first to close it and reveal the comparison panel underneath.
Read the side panel
With 2 or more locations selected, the right-hand rail becomes a compact comparison panel:
- A header reading "Comparing N states" (or metros, counties, cities), with a Clear link to drop the whole selection.
- If more than 5 locations are selected, a note like "Showing first 5 of 7 selected" — the panel and the full comparison both cap at 5.
- One row per selected location, colored to match the rest of the panel, showing its name, a subtitle (population, or state and CDP status for cities), and its Composite Score. Click the ✕ on a row to drop that one location from the comparison.
- A Full comparison button that opens the full-screen view.
- A radar chart overlaying each location's Cost, Workforce, Risk, Quality, and Regulatory scores, so you can see shape differences at a glance. City level skips this: cities have no composite or category scores, so their panel goes straight from the location rows to the metric table.
- A metric-by-metric table grouped by category (Layer Scores, then each data-layer group). The best value in each row is shown in green with a trophy mark. At City level, a value inherited from the city's county (rather than measured at the city itself) carries a small "County" tag, and a value suppressed at that population size shows as "—".
Open the full comparison
- Click Full comparison in the panel, or Compare in the toolbar, to
open the full-screen comparison view. It shows the same locations across
the full width of the screen:
- A header ("State Comparison", "Metro Comparison", "County Comparison", or "City Comparison") with a back arrow to return to the map.
- A card per location with its name, population, and score.
- A Layer Score Comparison radar chart and a Score Breakdown bar chart (State, Metro, County only; City has neither).
- A detailed comparison table grouped by category (for example Workforce & Demographics, Cost Factors, Risk & Environment, Quality of Life, Regulatory & Policy at State level), one row per metric, with the best value in each row highlighted in green.
Add, remove, or swap a location
- From the full comparison view, click Add State (or Add Metro, Add County, Add City) and search for a location to add it, up to 5 total. Click the ✕ on any location's card to remove it. There's no dedicated swap action: removing one and adding another has the same effect.
- Opening the full comparison with fewer than 2 locations selected shows an empty state instead ("Select 2–5 states to compare side-by-side across all metrics.") with buttons to go back to the map or add locations directly.
Economic development organizations typically select their own state, metro, or county alongside two or three competitor locations to see how they stack up category by category, then pull the best-value highlights into a pitch or marketing deck.
Site selectors typically select every candidate location on a shortlist at once and use the full comparison table to eliminate locations that lose on a hard requirement, before narrowing to a final recommendation.
What happens next
- At State level only, your selection (and so your comparison) is
written into the page's URL as
?states=, so copying and sharing that URL with a colleague reopens Explore with the same states selected and the same comparison panel available. Metro, County, and City comparisons are not reflected in the URL; a colleague needs to rebuild the selection by hand. - There is no separate export or save action for a comparison. To export the underlying data, use Export on the Explore toolbar with the same locations selected; see Explore a location for export limits and format.
- A standalone Compare tab existed in an earlier version of Insights.
Old links to it still work: they redirect into Explore, carrying over a
?states=selection if the old link had one, and land you on the same side panel and full comparison described here.
Common questions
Q: How many locations can I compare? A: Two is the minimum to see a comparison. Five is the maximum at every level (State, Metro, County, City); the side panel and full comparison both cap there, and City level shows a message if you try to add a sixth.
Q: Can I compare a state with a county, or a metro with a city? A: No. Comparison only works within one geography level at a time. Switching levels in Explore clears your selection, so build your comparison after you've picked the level you want.
Q: Can I share a comparison with a colleague? A: At State level, yes: copy the page URL while your states are selected and send it; it reopens with the same selection and comparison. At Metro, County, and City level, the selection isn't in the URL, so tell your colleague which locations to select instead.
Q: I don't see a Compare button. Why? A: You need at least 2 locations selected at the current Explore level. Below 2, Metro, County, and City show no Compare button, and State shows the regular location detail panel instead of the comparison panel.
Q: Is this the same as the Compare tab under Incentives? A: No. That's State Incentive Benchmarking, which compares states' incentive programs and award activity, not their economic and demographic metrics. See Incentive Intelligence.
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