Swindon 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 Swindon plotted against England and United Kingdom. The SNDi of new construction in Swindon peaked in 1976-1990, compared to England which peaked in 1991-2005 and United Kingdom which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Swindon's incremental SNDi fell from 3.39 to 2.56 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Swindon ranked 20th out of 124 cities in England and 24th 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?

• Batkhela, Pakistan
• Dingshu, China
• Jongju, North Korea
• Pingyi, China
• Tongliang, China
• Machilipatnam, India

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