Xinzheng 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 Xinzheng plotted against Henan and China. The SNDi of new construction in Xinzheng 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, Xinzheng's incremental SNDi fell from 2.77 to 2.14 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Xinzheng ranked 64th out of 129 cities in Henan and 516th 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?

• Siwan, India
• Changxing, China
• Al Harafsha, Egypt
• Safadasht, Iran
• Bolingbrook, United States
• Hakodate, Japan

In new street additions, Xinzheng built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Siwan fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Safadasht built increasingly connected streets over time. For the full network, Xinzheng grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Siwan became progressively more disconnected and Safadasht became progressively more connected. Xinzheng and Siwan have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.