Palmas 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 Palmas plotted against Tocantins and Brazil. The SNDi of new construction in Palmas followed a zig-zag trend with an overall decrease, compared to Tocantins which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and Brazil which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Palmas's incremental SNDi fell from 2.99 to 2.71 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Palmas ranked 4th out of 4 cities in Tocantins and 268th 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?

• Livingstone, Zambia
• Narasapuram, India
• Koudougou, Burkina Faso
• Louga, Senegal
• Sanyuan, China
• Udumalaipettai, India

In new street additions, Palmas fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Livingstone built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Louga built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Palmas became progressively more connected, while Livingstone grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Louga became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Palmas and Livingstone have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.