Zuogezhuang 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 Zuogezhuang plotted against Hebei and China. The SNDi of new construction in Zuogezhuang 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, Zuogezhuang's incremental SNDi rose from 3.63 to 5.36 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Zuogezhuang ranked 101st out of 120 cities in Hebei and 1480th 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?

• Neixiang, China
• Nanzheng, China
• Icaivera, Brazil
• Pinglu, China
• Wuyi County, China
• Acireale, Italy

In new street additions, Zuogezhuang and Pinglu both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Neixiang built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Zuogezhuang and Pinglu both became progressively more disconnected, while Neixiang became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Zuogezhuang and Neixiang have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.