Valence 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 Valence plotted against Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and France. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Valence's incremental SNDi fell from 4.24 to 3.88 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Valence ranked 6th out of 8 cities in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and 61st out of 73 in France as of 2020.

Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.

What about similarly populated cities?

• Pimpalgaon Basvant, India
• Redditch, United Kingdom
• Balkanabat, Turkmenistan
• Teng'ao, China
• Kamisee, Ethiopia
• Göppingen, Germany

In new street additions, Valence built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Pimpalgaon Basvant built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Teng'ao built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Valence became progressively more disconnected, while Pimpalgaon Basvant became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards and Teng'ao grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Valence and Pimpalgaon Basvant have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.