Beit Shemesh 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 Beit Shemesh plotted against Jerusalem and Israel. The SNDi of new construction in Beit Shemesh followed a zig-zag trend with an overall decrease, compared to Jerusalem which peaked in 1991-2005 and Israel which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Beit Shemesh's incremental SNDi fell from 4.75 to 4.19 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Beit Shemesh ranked 2nd out of 2 cities in Jerusalem and 16th out of 22 in Israel as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• An Numaniyah, Iraq
• Hongya, China
• Norristown, United States
• Tataouine, Tunisia
• Wencheng, China
• Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland

In new street additions, Beit Shemesh fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while An Numaniyah built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Tataouine fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Beit Shemesh and An Numaniyah both became progressively more connected, while Tataouine became progressively more disconnected.