Xinjiang 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 Xinjiang plotted against Shanxi and China. The SNDi of new construction in Xinjiang peaked in 1991-2005, compared to Shanxi which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Xinjiang's incremental SNDi fell from 4.36 to 3.1 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Xinjiang ranked 64th out of 80 cities in Shanxi and 1457th 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?

• Naldanga, Bangladesh
• Bataysk, Russia
• Pingjiang, China
• Longjiang, China
• Linhares, Brazil
• Zipaquirá, Colombia

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