La Serena 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 La Serena plotted against Coquimbo and Chile. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, La Serena's incremental SNDi rose from 2.98 to 3.32 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, La Serena ranked 3rd out of 3 cities in Coquimbo and 22nd out of 38 in Chile as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Bilasipara, India
• Mérida, Venezuela
• Proddatur, India
• Contai, India
• Alor Setar, Malaysia
• Hasilpur, Pakistan

In new street additions, La Serena and Bilasipara both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Contai built increasingly disconnected streets over time. Looking at the full network, Bilasipara and Contai both became progressively more disconnected, while La Serena fluctuated in connectivity. Notably, La Serena had a more sprawly network than Bilasipara in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.