Ajdabiya 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 Ajdabiya plotted against Al Wahat and Libya. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Ajdabiya's incremental SNDi fell from 2.03 to 2.0 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Ajdabiya ranked 1st out of 1 cities in Al Wahat and 1st out of 13 in Libya as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Anzio, Italy
• Taean, North Korea
• Merced, United States
• Biltine, Chad
• Pakse, Laos
• Dishna, Egypt

In new street additions, Ajdabiya built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Anzio built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Biltine built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Ajdabiya and Anzio both became progressively more disconnected, while Biltine became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Ajdabiya had a more sprawly network than Biltine in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.