Leping 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 Leping plotted against Guangdong and China. The SNDi of new construction in Leping followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, 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, Leping's incremental SNDi fell from 3.59 to 3.54 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Leping ranked 83rd out of 133 cities in Guangdong and 1333rd 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?

• Banka, India
• Whydah, Benin
• Jiawang, China
• Ballarpur, India
• Winneba, Ghana
• Pouso Alegre, Brazil

In new street additions, Leping fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Banka built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Ballarpur fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. Looking at the full network, Banka and Ballarpur both became progressively more disconnected, while Leping became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Leping had a more sprawly network than Banka in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.