Jincheng 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 Jincheng plotted against Sichuan and China. The SNDi of new construction in Jincheng was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Sichuan which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Jincheng's incremental SNDi rose from 5.05 to 6.59 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Jincheng ranked 87th out of 98 cities in Sichuan and 1694th 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?

• Phyongsan, North Korea
• Welenchete, Ethiopia
• Trelew, Argentina
• Khorramshahr, Iran
• Totonicapán, Guatemala
• Al Mafraq, Jordan

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