Bridgetown in context: Street-network sprawl trends

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Bridgetown plotted against Saint Michael and Barbados. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Bridgetown's incremental SNDi rose from 6.72 to 7.39 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Bridgetown ranked 1st out of 1 cities in Saint Michael and 1st out of 1 in Barbados as of 2020.

Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.

What about similarly populated cities?

• Yichuan, China
• Houma, China
• Changyuan, China
• Kirumba, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Dambidollo, Ethiopia
• Narkatiaganj, India

In new street additions, Bridgetown built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Yichuan built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Kirumba built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Bridgetown became progressively more disconnected, while Yichuan grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Kirumba became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Bridgetown and Kirumba have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.