Shiren 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 Shiren plotted against Jilin and China. The SNDi of new construction in Shiren peaked in 1991-2005, compared to Jilin which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Shiren's incremental SNDi fell from 6.46 to 6.16 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Shiren ranked 44th out of 47 cities in Jilin and 1607th 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?

• Tunduru, Tanzania
• Tierkloof, South Africa
• Fiche, Ethiopia
• Obe, Afghanistan
• Jingguan, China
• Yavne, Israel

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