Natal 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 Natal plotted against Rio Grande do Norte and Brazil. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Natal's incremental SNDi rose from 2.39 to 2.76 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Natal ranked 3rd out of 4 cities in Rio Grande do Norte and 159th out of 365 in Brazil as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Berhampore, India
• Naha, Japan
• Fushan, China
• Aboh, Nigeria
• Tianjia‘an, China
• Tainan, Taiwan

In new street additions, Natal and Berhampore both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Aboh built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Natal and Aboh have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.