Phulbari 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 Phulbari plotted against Rangpur and Bangladesh. The SNDi of new construction in Phulbari peaked in 1991-2005, compared to Rangpur which rose steadily and Bangladesh which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Phulbari's incremental SNDi fell from 7.71 to 7.08 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Phulbari ranked 15th out of 30 cities in Rangpur and 81st out of 234 in Bangladesh as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Chililabombwe, Zambia
• Kaiserslautern, Germany
• Lajeado, Brazil
• Changning, China
• Zheleznogorsk, Russia
• Kumanovo, North Macedonia

In new street additions, Phulbari built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Chililabombwe built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Changning built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Phulbari and Chililabombwe both became progressively more disconnected, while Changning grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Phulbari and Chililabombwe have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.