Belfast in context: Street-network sprawl trends
Belfast in context
The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Belfast plotted against Northern Ireland and United Kingdom. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Belfast's incremental SNDi fell from 7.79 to 5.82 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Belfast ranked 1st out of 3 cities in Northern Ireland and 127th out of 143 in United Kingdom as of 2020.
New Street Additions (2006–2020)
- SNDi value
- 5.82
- Rank in United Kingdom
- 127th of 143
- Rank in Northern Ireland
- 2nd of 3
Entire Network (Aggregate)
- SNDi value
- 4.23
- Rank in United Kingdom
- 127th of 143
- Rank in Northern Ireland
- 1st of 3
Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.
What about similarly populated cities?
In new street additions, Belfast and Nice both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Manizales fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Belfast and Nice have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.