Nashville in context: Street-network sprawl trends

Nashville in context

23456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
23456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
NashvilleTennessee (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Nashville plotted against Tennessee and United States. The SNDi of new construction in Nashville followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, compared to Tennessee which rose steadily and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Nashville's incremental SNDi rose from 4.8 to 5.98 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Nashville ranked 2nd out of 2 cities in Tennessee and 170th out of 333 in United States as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
5.98
Rank in United States
298th of 333
Rank in Tennessee
2nd of 2

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
3.23
Rank in United States
170th of 333
Rank in Tennessee
2nd of 2

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

What about similarly populated cities?

23456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
23456<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
NashvilleCape CoralChristchurch

In new street additions, Nashville fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Cape Coral built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Christchurch built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Nashville and Cape Coral both became progressively more disconnected, while Christchurch grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Notably, Nashville had a more connected network than Christchurch in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.