Detroit in context: Street-network sprawl trends
Detroit in context
The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Detroit plotted against Michigan and United States. The SNDi of new construction in Detroit rose steadily, compared to Michigan which rose steadily and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Detroit's incremental SNDi rose from 3.37 to 4.1 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Detroit ranked 3rd out of 7 cities in Michigan and 31st out of 333 in United States as of 2020.
New Street Additions (2006–2020)
- SNDi value
- 4.1
- Rank in United States
- 158th of 333
- Rank in Michigan
- 5th of 7
Entire Network (Aggregate)
- SNDi value
- 1.92
- Rank in United States
- 31st of 333
- Rank in Michigan
- 3rd of 7
Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.
What about similarly populated cities?
- Sapporo, Japan
- Nantong, China
- Palembang, Indonesia
- Port-au-Prince, Haiti
- Vancouver, Canada
- Tangshan, China
In new street additions, Detroit built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Sapporo fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Port-au-Prince built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend.