Lingwu 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 Lingwu plotted against Ningxia Hui and China. The SNDi of new construction in Lingwu peaked in 1976-1990, compared to Ningxia Hui which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Lingwu's incremental SNDi fell from 1.59 to 1.35 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lingwu ranked 2nd out of 15 cities in Ningxia Hui and 48th 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?

• Diêm Phổ, Vietnam
• Youyang, China
• Ginir, Ethiopia
• Morsito, Ethiopia
• Mangi 1, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Machhlishahr, India

In new street additions, Lingwu built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Diêm Phổ built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Morsito built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full network, Lingwu grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Diêm Phổ became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards and Morsito became progressively more disconnected. Notably, Lingwu had a more sprawly network than Morsito in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.