Pinghu 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 Pinghu plotted against Zhejiang and China. The SNDi of new construction in Pinghu was at its lowest in 1976-1990, 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, Pinghu's incremental SNDi rose from 1.96 to 2.46 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Pinghu ranked 20th out of 116 cities in Zhejiang and 367th 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?

• Bosaso, Somalia
• Jiangyan, China
• Haeju, North Korea
• Nanchuan, China
• Acheng, China
• Pathein, Myanmar

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