Ninghua 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 Ninghua plotted against Fujian and China. The SNDi of new construction in Ninghua peaked in 1976-1990, compared to Fujian which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Ninghua's incremental SNDi fell from 3.17 to 3.13 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Ninghua ranked 36th out of 75 cities in Fujian and 1103rd 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?

• Nazira, India
• Iwaki, Japan
• Bhadravati, India
• Piatra Neamț, Romania
• Chaman, Afghanistan
• Honjo, Japan

In new street additions, Ninghua built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Nazira fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Piatra Neamț built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full network, Ninghua grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Nazira became progressively more connected and Piatra Neamț became progressively more disconnected. Notably, Ninghua had a more connected network than Piatra Neamț in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.