Paris 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 Paris plotted against Île-de-France and France. While Île-de-France and France both peaked in 1991-2005, Paris's new street additions peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Paris's incremental SNDi fell from 3.2 to 2.85 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Paris ranked 1st out of 8 cities in Île-de-France and 11th 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?

• London, United Kingdom
• Shantou, China
• Lima, Peru
• Suzhou, China
• Bogota, Colombia
• Taipei, Taiwan

In new street additions, Paris and London both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Suzhou fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Paris and Suzhou have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.