Runan 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 Runan plotted against Henan and China. The SNDi of new construction in Runan rose steadily, compared to Henan which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Runan's incremental SNDi rose from 3.81 to 4.8 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Runan ranked 68th out of 129 cities in Henan and 669th 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?

• Leku, Ethiopia
• Kobo, Ethiopia
• Shindand, Afghanistan
• Changyuan, China
• Houma, China
• Yichuan, China

In new street additions, Runan and Leku both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Changyuan built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Looking at the full network, Leku and Changyuan both became progressively more disconnected, while Runan became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Runan had a more connected network than Changyuan in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.