Nanjing in context: Street-network sprawl trends

Nanjing in context

2345<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2345<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
NanjingFujian (Region)China (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Nanjing plotted against Fujian and China. While Fujian and China both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, Nanjing's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Nanjing's incremental SNDi rose from 1.99 to 2.1 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Nanjing ranked 4th out of 75 cities in Fujian as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
2.1
Rank in Fujian
6th of 75

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
1.92
Rank in Fujian
4th of 75

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

What about similarly populated cities?

1.82.73.64.5<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
1.82.73.64.5<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
NanjingItatibaSoke

In new street additions, Nanjing and Söke both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Itatiba built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Notably, Nanjing had a more connected network than Söke in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.