Yuanyang 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 Yuanyang plotted against Henan and China. The SNDi of new construction in Yuanyang peaked in 1991-2005, compared to Henan which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Yuanyang's incremental SNDi fell from 3.95 to 2.53 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Yuanyang ranked 108th out of 129 cities in Henan and 1169th 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?

• Kitengela, Kenya
• Rajgangpur, India
• Fashn, Egypt
• Xinshao, China
• Zhangbei, China
• Matabhanga, India

In new street additions, Yuanyang and Kitengela both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Xinshao fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Yuanyang grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Kitengela became progressively more disconnected and Xinshao grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Notably, Yuanyang had a more connected network than Xinshao in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.