Bloomington in context: Street-network sprawl trends

Bloomington in context

2.73.64.5<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2.73.64.5<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
BloomingtonIndiana (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Bloomington plotted against Indiana and United States. The SNDi of new construction in Bloomington followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, compared to Indiana which peaked in 1991-2005 and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Bloomington's incremental SNDi rose from 3.73 to 3.82 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Bloomington ranked 5th out of 7 cities in Indiana as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
3.82
Rank in Indiana
4th of 7

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
2.76
Rank in Indiana
5th of 7

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

What about similarly populated cities?

2.12.83.54.2<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2.12.83.54.2<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
BloomingtonKlinAl-Kaf

In new street additions, Bloomington and Al-Kaf both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Klin built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Bloomington and Klin have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.