Leuven 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 Leuven plotted against Vlaanderen and Belgium. The SNDi of new construction in Leuven followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, compared to Vlaanderen which rose steadily and Belgium which rose steadily. Most recently, Leuven's incremental SNDi rose from 2.25 to 3.14 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Leuven ranked 2nd out of 9 cities in Vlaanderen and 3rd out of 16 in Belgium as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Villa del Rosario, Venezuela
• Guasave, México
• Taigu, China
• Ramnagar, India
• Xingtang, China
• Saen Suk, Thailand

In new street additions, Leuven fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Villa del Rosario built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Ramnagar built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Leuven and Villa del Rosario both became progressively more disconnected, while Ramnagar became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Leuven had a more sprawly network than Villa del Rosario in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.