Mobile 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 Mobile plotted against Alabama and United States. The SNDi of new construction in Mobile rose steadily, compared to Alabama which rose steadily and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Mobile's incremental SNDi rose from 4.04 to 4.12 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Mobile ranked 2nd out of 4 cities in Alabama and 100th out of 333 in United States as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Akbarpur, India
• Gulavthi, India
• Hengfeng, China
• Jinxiang, China
• Pinrang, Indonesia
• Panchananpur, India

In new street additions, Mobile built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Akbarpur built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Jinxiang built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Mobile became progressively more disconnected, while Akbarpur grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Jinxiang became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards.