The economic space quality is an important factor for the sustainable and stable development of regions. The period of stagnation of the Russian economy has had a negative impact on the dynamics of the social and economic development of the Northwest Federal District regions. The significant decline in GRP growth and fixed investment was accompanied by a significant increase in interregional differentiation, which further increased the heterogeneity of economic space. A sharp decline in the indices of «weak» regions has led to an increase in the tendency of «shrinking» of the population to sufficiently well-off regions, which creates a multiplicative effect of the increase of differentiation of the level of social and economic development of the RF subjects and further deterioration of the economic space quality. «New» factors of regional development -innovations and digitalization, do not yet have a significant impact on regional development due to their weakness. The quality of economic space is also affected by a significant reduction in interregional interaction in a stagnant economy.