Ramallah 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 Ramallah plotted against West Bank and Palestine. The SNDi of new construction in Ramallah followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, compared to West Bank which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and Palestine which peaked in 1976-1990. Most recently, Ramallah's incremental SNDi rose from 4.9 to 5.46 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Ramallah ranked 6th out of 11 cities in West Bank and 9th out of 14 in Palestine as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Dusseldorf, Germany
• Chelyabinsk, Russia
• Kharameh, Iran
• Shiyan, China
• Farrukhabad, India
• Mérida, México

In new street additions, Ramallah fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Dusseldorf built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Shiyan built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Ramallah and Dusseldorf both became progressively more disconnected, while Shiyan grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Ramallah and Shiyan have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.