Mahalapye 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 Mahalapye plotted against Central and Botswana. The SNDi of new construction in Mahalapye followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, compared to Central which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and Botswana which peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Mahalapye's incremental SNDi rose from 1.58 to 1.79 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Mahalapye ranked 1st out of 1 cities in Central and 1st out of 7 in Botswana as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Cosmópolis, Brazil
• Dhamdaha, India
• Dengkou, China
• Yanshan, China
• Martil, Morocco
• Baniarapara, India

In new street additions, Mahalapye fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Cosmópolis built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Yanshan built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Mahalapye fluctuated in connectivity, while Cosmópolis became progressively more disconnected and Yanshan became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Mahalapye had a more sprawly network than Cosmópolis in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.