Luojiang 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 Luojiang plotted against Fujian and China. The SNDi of new construction in Luojiang was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Fujian which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Luojiang's incremental SNDi rose from 2.31 to 3.32 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Luojiang ranked 20th out of 75 cities in Fujian and 719th out of 1843 in China as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Huntsville, United States
• Hilversum, Netherlands
• Damshir, Egypt
• Manawar, India
• Gomastapur, Bangladesh
• Kaliganj, Bangladesh

In new street additions, Luojiang built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Huntsville built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Manawar fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Luojiang became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards, while Huntsville became progressively more disconnected and Manawar became progressively more connected. Notably, Luojiang had a more sprawly network than Huntsville in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.