Zibo 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 Zibo plotted against Shandong and China. The SNDi of new construction in Zibo peaked in 1976-1990, compared to Shandong which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Zibo's incremental SNDi fell from 3.07 to 2.84 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Zibo ranked 98th out of 124 cities in Shandong and 1098th 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?

• Hamburg, Germany
• Basra, Iraq
• Aligarh, India
• Putian, China
• Campinas, Brazil
• Niterói, Brazil

In new street additions, Zibo and Putian both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Hamburg built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Zibo grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Hamburg became progressively more disconnected and Putian grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Zibo and Putian have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.