Hengdian 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 Hengdian plotted against Zhejiang and China. The SNDi of new construction in Hengdian was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Zhejiang which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Hengdian's incremental SNDi rose from 2.69 to 3.84 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Hengdian ranked 65th out of 116 cities in Zhejiang and 938th 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?

• Red Deer, Canada
• Hengelo, Netherlands
• Allen, United States
• Kwaksan, North Korea
• Sherghati, India
• Semnan, Iran

In new street additions, Hengdian built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Red Deer fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Kwaksan built increasingly connected streets over time. For the full network, Hengdian became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards, while Red Deer became progressively more disconnected and Kwaksan became progressively more connected. Hengdian and Red Deer have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.