McAllen in context: Street-network sprawl trends

McAllen in context

2.43.244.8<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2.43.244.8<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
McAllenTexas (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with McAllen plotted against Texas and United States. The SNDi of new construction in McAllen rose steadily, compared to Texas which rose steadily and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, McAllen's incremental SNDi rose from 3.65 to 3.82 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, McAllen ranked 24th out of 42 cities in Texas and 155th out of 333 in United States as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
3.82
Rank in United States
122nd of 333
Rank in Texas
27th of 42

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
3.12
Rank in United States
155th of 333
Rank in Texas
24th of 42

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

What about similarly populated cities?

2.43.244.8<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
2.43.244.8<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
McAllenCap-HaitienCabimas

McAllen, Cap-Haitien, and Cabimas all built increasingly disconnected streets over time in new street construction. The same pattern holds for the full street network. Notably, McAllen had a more sprawly network than Cap-Haitien in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.