East London in context: Street-network sprawl trends

East London in context

3456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
3456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
East LondonEastern Cape (Region)South Africa (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with East London plotted against Eastern Cape and South Africa. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, East London's incremental SNDi rose from 5.94 to 6.07 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, East London ranked 9th out of 9 cities in Eastern Cape and 68th out of 81 in South Africa as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
6.07
Rank in South Africa
69th of 81
Rank in Eastern Cape
9th of 9

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
4.52
Rank in South Africa
68th of 81
Rank in Eastern Cape
9th of 9

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

What about similarly populated cities?

246<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
246<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
East LondonLongchangDeesa

In new street additions, East London and Deesa both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Longchang built increasingly connected streets over time. For the full network, East London and Deesa both became progressively more disconnected, while Longchang became progressively more connected. Notably, East London had a more sprawly network than Deesa in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.