Zhongmu County 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 Zhongmu County plotted against Henan and China. The SNDi of new construction in Zhongmu County 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, Zhongmu County's incremental SNDi fell from 2.43 to 1.54 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Zhongmu County ranked 47th out of 129 cities in Henan and 332nd 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?

• Cafunfo, Angola
• Laohekou, China
• Yong'an, China
• Kulai, Malaysia
• Duodao, China
• Potsdam, Germany

In new street additions, Zhongmu County and Cafunfo both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Kulai fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Zhongmu County grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Cafunfo grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Kulai became progressively more disconnected. Zhongmu County and Cafunfo have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.