Lüeyang 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 Lüeyang plotted against Shaanxi and China. The SNDi of new construction in Lüeyang fell steadily, compared to Shaanxi which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Lüeyang's incremental SNDi fell from 4.47 to 3.92 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lüeyang ranked 61st out of 62 cities in Shaanxi and 1770th 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?

• Funing, China
• Huimin, China
• Danfeng, China
• Picha Ya Ndege, Tanzania
• Kafr al Bashbishah, Egypt
• Qalat, Pakistan

In new street additions, Lüeyang built increasingly connected streets over time, while Funing fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Picha Ya Ndege built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full network, Lüeyang became progressively more connected, while Funing fluctuated in connectivity and Picha Ya Ndege became progressively more disconnected. Lüeyang and Funing have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.