New Orleans in context: Street-network sprawl trends

New Orleans in context

3456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
3456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
New OrleansLouisiana (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with New Orleans plotted against Louisiana and United States. The SNDi of new construction in New Orleans rose steadily, compared to Louisiana which rose steadily and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, New Orleans's incremental SNDi rose from 4.28 to 4.64 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, New Orleans ranked 1st out of 3 cities in Louisiana and 120th out of 333 in United States as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
4.64
Rank in United States
223rd of 333
Rank in Louisiana
3rd of 3

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
2.83
Rank in United States
120th of 333
Rank in Louisiana
1st of 3

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

What about similarly populated cities?

2.43.244.8<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2.43.244.8<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
New OrleansJhusiCleveland

In new street additions, New Orleans built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Jhusi built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Cleveland built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, New Orleans and Cleveland both became progressively more disconnected, while Jhusi became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards.