Phyongsan 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 Phyongsan plotted against Hwanghae-bukto and North Korea. The SNDi of new construction in Phyongsan peaked in 1991-2005, compared to Hwanghae-bukto which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and North Korea which peaked in 1976-1990. Most recently, Phyongsan's incremental SNDi fell from 11.9 to 3.57 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Phyongsan ranked 6th out of 6 cities in Hwanghae-bukto and 78th out of 92 in North Korea as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Welenchete, Ethiopia
• Trelew, Argentina
• Jinxi, China
• Jincheng, China
• Khorramshahr, Iran
• Totonicapán, Guatemala

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