Elgin in context: Street-network sprawl trends
Elgin in context
The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Elgin plotted against Illinois and United States. The SNDi of new construction in Elgin rose steadily, compared to Illinois which peaked in 1991-2005 and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Elgin's incremental SNDi rose from 4.5 to 4.81 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Elgin ranked 7th out of 12 cities in Illinois and 121st out of 333 in United States as of 2020.
New Street Additions (2006–2020)
- SNDi value
- 4.81
- Rank in United States
- 237th of 333
- Rank in Illinois
- 10th of 12
Entire Network (Aggregate)
- SNDi value
- 2.83
- Rank in United States
- 121st of 333
- Rank in Illinois
- 7th of 12
Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.
What about similarly populated cities?
In new street additions, Elgin built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Tongcheng built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Markapur built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Looking at the full network, Tongcheng and Markapur both grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Elgin became progressively more disconnected. Elgin and Tongcheng have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.