Cedar Rapids 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 Cedar Rapids plotted against Iowa and United States. While Iowa and United States both peaked in 1991-2005, Cedar Rapids's new street additions peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Cedar Rapids's incremental SNDi fell from 2.7 to 2.54 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Cedar Rapids ranked 1st out of 4 cities in Iowa and 9th 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?

• Umm Qasr, Iraq
• Darou Khoudoss, Senegal
• Tlapa de Comonfort, México
• Bistrița, Romania
• Arvi, India
• Prilep, North Macedonia

In new street additions, Cedar Rapids built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Umm Qasr built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Bistrița built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Cedar Rapids and Bistrița have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.