Las Cruces 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 Las Cruces plotted against New Mexico and United States. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Las Cruces's incremental SNDi fell from 4.3 to 3.94 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Las Cruces ranked 1st out of 4 cities in New Mexico and 108th 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?

• Suan, North Korea
• 拖船镇, China
• Julu, China
• Cicheng, China
• Thohoyandou, South Africa
• Pandharkawada, India

In new street additions, Las Cruces and Suan both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Cicheng built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Las Cruces and Suan both became progressively more disconnected, while Cicheng grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Las Cruces and Cicheng have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.