Beiguan 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 Beiguan plotted against Guangdong and China. The SNDi of new construction in Beiguan was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Guangdong which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Beiguan's incremental SNDi rose from 2.34 to 3.09 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Beiguan ranked 32nd out of 133 cities in Guangdong and 648th 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?

• Siguatepeque, Honduras
• Itajubá, Brazil
• Qalat Saleh, Iraq
• Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
• Kandukur, India
• Akçakale, Turkey

In new street additions, Beiguan built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Siguatepeque built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Fujairah built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Beiguan became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards, while Siguatepeque became progressively more disconnected and Fujairah grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Notably, Beiguan had a more connected network than Fujairah in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.