Charikar in context: Street-network sprawl trends

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Charikar plotted against Parwan and Afghanistan. The SNDi of new construction in Charikar fell steadily, compared to Parwan which fell steadily and Afghanistan which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Charikar's incremental SNDi fell from 2.15 to 1.98 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Charikar ranked 1st out of 4 cities in Parwan and 4th out of 73 in Afghanistan as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Muktagacha, Bangladesh
• Gunsan-si, South Korea
• Kulim, Malaysia
• Shahganj, India
• Changshou, China
• Shulan, China

While Muktagacha and Shahganj both built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, Charikar built increasingly connected streets over time in new street additions. Looking at the full network, Muktagacha and Shahganj both became progressively more disconnected, while Charikar became progressively more connected. Notably, Charikar had a more sprawly network than Shahganj in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.