Qingkou 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 Qingkou plotted against Fujian and China. While Fujian and China both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, Qingkou's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Qingkou's incremental SNDi rose from 6.66 to 6.97 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Qingkou ranked 72nd out of 75 cities in Fujian and 1818th 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?

• Omoku, Nigeria
• Xishui County, China
• Chipata, Zambia
• Recanto das Emas, Brazil
• Tabora, Tanzania
• Jiangjing, China

In new street additions, Qingkou fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Omoku built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Recanto das Emas built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Qingkou fluctuated in connectivity, while Omoku became progressively more disconnected and Recanto das Emas became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Qingkou and Recanto das Emas have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.