Lincoln 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 Lincoln plotted against England and United Kingdom. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Lincoln's incremental SNDi fell from 5.86 to 5.36 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lincoln ranked 111th out of 124 cities in England and 125th out of 143 in United Kingdom as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Thana, Pakistan
• Anju, North Korea
• Saral, Bangladesh
• Alibag, India
• Punalur, India
• Kani, Japan

In new street additions, Lincoln built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Thana fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Alibag built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Lincoln became progressively more disconnected, while Thana fluctuated in connectivity and Alibag became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Lincoln and Thana have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.