St. Louis in context: Street-network sprawl trends

St. Louis in context

2.73.64.55.4<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2.73.64.55.4<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
St. LouisMissouri (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with St. Louis plotted against Missouri and United States. The SNDi of new construction in St. Louis rose steadily, compared to Missouri which peaked in 1991-2005 and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, St. Louis's incremental SNDi rose from 4.13 to 4.24 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, St. Louis ranked 3rd out of 4 cities in Missouri and 115th out of 333 in United States as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
4.24
Rank in United States
183rd of 333
Rank in Missouri
3rd of 4

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
2.8
Rank in United States
115th of 333
Rank in Missouri
3rd of 4

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

What about similarly populated cities?

2.433.64.2<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2.433.64.2<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
St. LouisValparaisoSangli

In new street additions, St. Louis and Sangli both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Valparaíso fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Notably, St. Louis had a more sprawly network than Sangli in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.