Mule 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 Mule plotted against Guangxi and China. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Mule's incremental SNDi rose from 3.59 to 9.66 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Mule ranked 60th out of 63 cities in Guangxi and 1771st 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?

• Xinxian, China
• K'Ali K'Esa Bota, Ethiopia
• Uông Bí, Vietnam
• Banzhuyuan, China
• 천성로동자구, North Korea
• Racine, United States

In new street additions, Mule and Xinxian both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Banzhuyuan built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Mule fluctuated in connectivity, while Xinxian became progressively more disconnected and Banzhuyuan became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Mule and Banzhuyuan have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.