The identification of learning gaps is particularly complex when the focus shifts from the regional and macro-regional level to that of smaller areas, which may, however, conceal large differences. This first analysis will focus on the differences in terms of educational poverty between the centre and the periphery of the two largest urban centres in Northern Italy: Milan and Turin. The analysis aims to highlight the complexity of educational poverty in large urban centres, even in the wealthiest and most advanced areas of the country [1]. For this reason, INVALSI (Italian National Institute for School Evaluation) introduced the concept of implicit drop-out as a measure of educational poverty. This is defined as the proportion of young people who have completed formal education but have not acquired the necessary basic skills. The paper proposes a first identification of the suburbs of the two large urban centres, using indicators capable of capturing the economic and social complexity of the neighbourhoods. The analysis shows that the two large cities conceal differences within them that sometimes exceed the national variability of basic learning outcomes.