Palmerston North 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 Palmerston North plotted against Manawatu-Wanganui and New Zealand. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Palmerston North's incremental SNDi fell from 4.71 to 4.41 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Palmerston North ranked 1st out of 1 cities in Manawatu-Wanganui and 7th out of 9 in New Zealand as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Sanggau, Indonesia
• Diphu, India
• Selden, United States
• Bina Etawa, India
• Nawnghkio, Myanmar
• Ongjin, North Korea

While Sanggau and Bina Etawa both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, Palmerston North built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved in new street additions. For the full network, Palmerston North and Sanggau both became progressively more disconnected, while Bina Etawa fluctuated in connectivity. Notably, Palmerston North had a more sprawly network than Bina Etawa in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.