Springfield 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 Springfield plotted against Missouri and United States. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Springfield's incremental SNDi fell from 3.63 to 3.49 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Springfield ranked 2nd out of 4 cities in Missouri and 77th 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?

• Trà Vinh, Vietnam
• Yessentuki, Russia
• Allahabad, Pakistan
• Karwar, India
• Chakradharpur, India
• Carúpano, Venezuela

In new street additions, Springfield built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Trà Vinh built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Karwar built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Springfield and Trà Vinh both became progressively more disconnected, while Karwar became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Springfield and Trà Vinh have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.