Guodian 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 Guodian plotted against Henan and China. The SNDi of new construction in Guodian peaked in 1976-1990, compared to Henan which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Guodian's incremental SNDi fell from 3.42 to 2.23 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Guodian ranked 79th out of 129 cities in Henan and 802nd 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?

• Amparo, Brazil
• Esik, Kazakhstan
• Wejherowo, Poland
• Nyamilima, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Sungaiguntung, Indonesia
• Saint-Jérôme, Canada

In new street additions, Guodian built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Amparo fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Nyamilima built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Guodian grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Amparo became progressively more disconnected and Nyamilima became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Guodian had a more sprawly network than Amparo in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.