Jinchang 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 Jinchang plotted against Gansu and China. The SNDi of new construction in Jinchang was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Gansu which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Jinchang's incremental SNDi rose from 1.9 to 1.93 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Jinchang ranked 1st out of 29 cities in Gansu and 395th 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?

• Ugep, Nigeria
• Olsztyn, Poland
• Dakshin Gopalnagar, India
• Fenchuganj, Bangladesh
• Motherwell, South Africa
• Nenjiang, China

In new street additions, Jinchang built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Ugep built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Fenchuganj fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. Looking at the full network, Ugep and Fenchuganj both became progressively more disconnected, while Jinchang became progressively more connected. Notably, Jinchang had a more sprawly network than Ugep in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.