Zihuatanejo 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 Zihuatanejo plotted against Guerrero and México. The SNDi of new construction in Zihuatanejo was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Guerrero which rose steadily and México which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Zihuatanejo's incremental SNDi rose from 2.88 to 4.43 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Zihuatanejo ranked 2nd out of 7 cities in Guerrero and 120th out of 182 in México as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Luonan, China
• Nasirnagar, Bangladesh
• Sakrand, Pakistan
• Rugby, United Kingdom
• Savona, Italy
• Neemrana, India

In new street additions, Zihuatanejo built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Luonan fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Rugby built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Zihuatanejo became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards, while Luonan fluctuated in connectivity and Rugby became progressively more disconnected. Notably, Zihuatanejo had a more connected network than Luonan in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.