Lüneburg 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 Lüneburg plotted against Niedersachsen and Germany. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Lüneburg's incremental SNDi rose from 2.49 to 3.09 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lüneburg ranked 5th out of 9 cities in Niedersachsen and 40th out of 99 in Germany as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Masallı, Azerbaijan
• Kungur, Russia
• Baniarapara, India
• Kauriram, India
• Glen Burnie, United States
• Saint-André, Réunion

In new street additions, Lüneburg built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Masallı built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Kauriram fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Lüneburg became progressively more disconnected, while Masallı became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards and Kauriram grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Lüneburg and Kauriram have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.