Lancaster in context: Street-network sprawl trends

Lancaster in context

12345<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
12345<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
LancasterPennsylvania (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Lancaster plotted against Pennsylvania and United States. While Pennsylvania and United States both peaked in 1991-2005, Lancaster's new street additions peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Lancaster's incremental SNDi fell from 3.29 to 3.11 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lancaster ranked 5th out of 16 cities in Pennsylvania as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
3.11
Rank in Pennsylvania
2nd of 16

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
1.79
Rank in Pennsylvania
5th of 16

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

What about similarly populated cities?

2468<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2468<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
LancasterTartuSangmelima

While Tartu and Sangmélima both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, Lancaster built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved in new street additions. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Notably, Lancaster had a more connected network than Tartu in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.