Iowa City in context: Street-network sprawl trends
Iowa City in context
The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Iowa City plotted against Iowa and United States. The SNDi of new construction in Iowa City rose steadily, compared to Iowa which rose steadily and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Iowa City's incremental SNDi rose from 3.71 to 4.02 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Iowa City ranked 4th out of 4 cities in Iowa and 85th out of 333 in United States as of 2020.
New Street Additions (2006–2020)
- SNDi value
- 4.02
- Rank in United States
- 146th of 333
- Rank in Iowa
- 3rd of 4
Entire Network (Aggregate)
- SNDi value
- 2.53
- Rank in United States
- 85th of 333
- Rank in Iowa
- 4th of 4
Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.
What about similarly populated cities?
In new street additions, Iowa City and Mirebalais both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Sher Chakla built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Iowa City and Mirebalais both became progressively more disconnected, while Sher Chakla grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Notably, Iowa City had a more sprawly network than Mirebalais in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.