Chania 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 Chania plotted against Crete and Greece. The SNDi of new construction in Chania was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Crete which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall decrease and Greece which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Chania's incremental SNDi rose from 2.29 to 3.94 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Chania ranked 2nd out of 2 cities in Crete and 8th out of 8 in Greece as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• San Rafael, United States
• Rybnik, Poland
• Karatsu, Japan
• Metu, Ethiopia
• Kraljevo, Serbia
• Dadhapi, India

In new street additions, Chania built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while San Rafael fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Metu built increasingly disconnected streets over time. Looking at the full network, San Rafael and Metu both became progressively more disconnected, while Chania became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Notably, Chania had a more sprawly network than San Rafael in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.