Xingtai 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 Xingtai plotted against Jiangsu and China. While Jiangsu and China both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, Xingtai's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall decrease. Most recently, Xingtai's incremental SNDi rose from 3.66 to 4.12 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Xingtai ranked 92nd out of 101 cities in Jiangsu as of 2020.

Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.

What about similarly populated cities?

• Damboa, Nigeria
• Kasangulu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Lemery, Philippines
• Virudhunagar, India
• Kluang, Malaysia
• Modena, Italy

In new street additions, Xingtai fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Damboa built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Virudhunagar built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Xingtai grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Damboa became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards and Virudhunagar became progressively more disconnected. Xingtai and Virudhunagar have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.