Saint-Nazaire 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 Saint-Nazaire plotted against Pays de la Loire and France. The SNDi of new construction in Saint-Nazaire peaked in 1976-1990, compared to Pays de la Loire which peaked in 1991-2005 and France which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Saint-Nazaire's incremental SNDi fell from 2.06 to 1.99 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Saint-Nazaire ranked 1st out of 4 cities in Pays de la Loire and 1st 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?

• Teluk Dalam, Indonesia
• Gniezno, Poland
• Kamba, Nigeria
• Shaobo, China
• Cataguases, Brazil
• Gangtou, China

Saint-Nazaire, Teluk Dalam, and Shaobo all built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved in new street construction. For the full network, Saint-Nazaire became progressively more disconnected, while Teluk Dalam grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Shaobo grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved.