New Britain 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 New Britain plotted against Connecticut and United States. The SNDi of new construction in New Britain peaked in 1976-1990, compared to Connecticut which rose steadily and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, New Britain's incremental SNDi fell from 2.73 to 1.31 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, New Britain ranked 3rd out of 7 cities in Connecticut and 99th 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?

• San Luis de la Paz, México
• Zhaogezhuang, China
• Suphan Buri, Thailand
• Madaya, Myanmar
• Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia
• Roha, India

In new street additions, New Britain built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while San Luis de la Paz fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Madaya built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, New Britain grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while San Luis de la Paz fluctuated in connectivity and Madaya became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Notably, New Britain had a more connected network than San Luis de la Paz in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.