Charlotte in context: Street-network sprawl trends
Charlotte in context
The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Charlotte plotted against North Carolina and United States. The SNDi of new construction in Charlotte peaked in 1976-1990, compared to North Carolina which peaked in 1991-2005 and United States which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Charlotte's incremental SNDi fell from 4.96 to 4.36 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Charlotte ranked 4th out of 7 cities in North Carolina and 249th out of 333 in United States as of 2020.
New Street Additions (2006–2020)
- SNDi value
- 4.36
- Rank in United States
- 196th of 333
- Rank in North Carolina
- 3rd of 7
Entire Network (Aggregate)
- SNDi value
- 3.98
- Rank in United States
- 249th of 333
- Rank in North Carolina
- 4th of 7
Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.
What about similarly populated cities?
- Paarl, South Africa
- Jieshan, China
- Hojai, India
- Conghua, China
- Jiayuguan, China
- Northampton, United Kingdom
In new street additions, Charlotte built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved, while Paarl built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Conghua built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Notably, Charlotte had a more connected network than Paarl in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.