Heping 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 Heping plotted against Gansu and China. While Gansu and China both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, Heping's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall decrease. Most recently, Heping's incremental SNDi rose from 4.55 to 5.28 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Heping ranked 26th out of 29 cities in Gansu and 1775th 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?

• Sartu, China
• Itapeva, Brazil
• Wikong, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Kekri, India
• Junlian, China
• Doyogena, Ethiopia

In new street additions, Heping and Kekri both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Sartu built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Heping and Kekri both grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Sartu became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards.