Xinghua 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 Xinghua plotted against Heilongjiang and China. The SNDi of new construction in Xinghua rose steadily, compared to Heilongjiang which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Xinghua's incremental SNDi rose from 6.04 to 8.76 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Xinghua ranked 66th out of 67 cities in Heilongjiang and 1734th 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?

• Matli, Pakistan
• Butajira, Ethiopia
• Jaén, Spain
• Penrith, Australia
• Ash Shamiya, Iraq
• Rubuchi, Nigeria

In new street additions, Xinghua built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Matli fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Penrith built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Xinghua became progressively more disconnected, while Matli fluctuated in connectivity and Penrith grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Xinghua and Matli have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.