Wilmington in context: Street-network sprawl trends

Wilmington in context

23456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
23456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
WilmingtonDelaware (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Wilmington plotted against Delaware and United States. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Wilmington's incremental SNDi fell from 4.34 to 3.26 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Wilmington ranked 1st out of 2 cities in Delaware as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
3.26
Rank in Delaware
1st of 2

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
2.19
Rank in Delaware
1st of 2

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

What about similarly populated cities?

012345<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
012345<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
WilmingtonAbudwakTulancingo

In new street additions, Wilmington built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Abudwak built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Tulancingo built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Notably, Wilmington had a more sprawly network than Abudwak in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.