Pingshan 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 Pingshan plotted against Hebei and China. The SNDi of new construction in Pingshan rose steadily, compared to Hebei which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Pingshan's incremental SNDi rose from 3.37 to 5.68 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Pingshan ranked 107th out of 120 cities in Hebei and 1539th 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?

• Caxito, Angola
• Notsé, Togo
• Ligao, Philippines
• Taunsa Sharif, Pakistan
• 북청읍, North Korea
• Amethi, India

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