Salt Lake City in context: Street-network sprawl trends

Salt Lake City in context

33.64.24.8<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of street additions
33.64.24.8<19751976–19901991–20052006–2020SNDi of entire street network
Salt Lake CityUtah (Region)United States (Country)

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Salt Lake City plotted against Utah and United States. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Salt Lake City's incremental SNDi fell from 4.46 to 3.64 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Salt Lake City ranked 6th out of 6 cities in Utah and 232nd out of 333 in United States as of 2020.

New Street Additions (2006–2020)

SNDi value
3.64
Rank in United States
98th of 333
Rank in Utah
2nd of 6

Entire Network (Aggregate)

SNDi value
3.75
Rank in United States
232nd of 333
Rank in Utah
6th of 6

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
Salt Lake CityMaracaySincan

In new street additions, Salt Lake City and Maracay both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Sincan fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. Looking at the full network, Maracay and Sincan both became progressively more disconnected, while Salt Lake City grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Notably, Salt Lake City had a more sprawly network than Maracay in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.