Ning'an 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 Ning'an plotted against Heilongjiang and China. The SNDi of new construction in Ning'an peaked in 1976-1990, compared to Heilongjiang which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Ning'an's incremental SNDi fell from 6.2 to 5.9 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Ning'an ranked 65th out of 67 cities in Heilongjiang and 1710th 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?

• Chester-le-Street, United Kingdom
• Dayu, China
• Rayachoti, India
• Coatbridge, United Kingdom
• Dharamshala, India
• Bugulma, Russia

While Chester-le-Street and Coatbridge both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, Ning'an built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved in new street additions. For the full network, Ning'an and Coatbridge both became progressively more disconnected, while Chester-le-Street grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Notably, Ning'an had a more connected network than Chester-le-Street in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.