Valsad 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 Valsad plotted against Gujarat and India. The SNDi of new construction in Valsad rose steadily, compared to Gujarat which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Valsad's incremental SNDi rose from 4.76 to 5.35 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Valsad ranked 67th out of 92 cities in Gujarat and 1240th out of 1868 in India as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Jiangyou, China
• Vinh Long, Vietnam
• Dali, China
• Ngandajika, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Birpur, India
• Novi Sad, Serbia

In new street additions, Valsad built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Jiangyou built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Ngandajika built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Valsad and Ngandajika both became progressively more disconnected, while Jiangyou grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Notably, Valsad had a more connected network than Jiangyou in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.