Meihekou 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 Meihekou plotted against Jilin and China. The SNDi of new construction in Meihekou peaked in 1976-1990, compared to Jilin which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Meihekou's incremental SNDi fell from 2.62 to 1.81 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Meihekou ranked 18th out of 47 cities in Jilin and 537th 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?

• Bahawalnagar, Pakistan
• Jimma, Ethiopia
• Beldanga, India
• Porbandar, India
• Sikandarabad, India
• Ughelli, Nigeria

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