Seattle in context: Street-network sprawl trends
Seattle in context
The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Seattle plotted against Washington and United States. While Washington and United States both peaked in 1991-2005, Seattle's new street additions peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Seattle's incremental SNDi fell from 5.76 to 5.71 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Seattle ranked 7th out of 8 cities in Washington and 251st out of 333 in United States as of 2020.
New Street Additions (2006–2020)
- SNDi value
- 5.71
- Rank in United States
- 290th of 333
- Rank in Washington
- 8th of 8
Entire Network (Aggregate)
- SNDi value
- 4.03
- Rank in United States
- 251st of 333
- Rank in Washington
- 7th of 8
Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.
What about similarly populated cities?
While Zhuhai [Macau] and Dhanbad both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, Seattle 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. Seattle and Dhanbad have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.