Dharamshala 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 Dharamshala plotted against Himachal Pradesh and India. The SNDi of new construction in Dharamshala rose steadily, compared to Himachal Pradesh which was at its lowest in 1976-1990 and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Dharamshala's incremental SNDi rose from 5.95 to 7.2 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Dharamshala ranked 4th out of 6 cities in Himachal Pradesh and 1629th 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?

• Coatbridge, United Kingdom
• Ning'an, China
• Chester-le-Street, United Kingdom
• Bugulma, Russia
• Kirodimal Nagar, India
• Keningau, Malaysia

In new street additions, Dharamshala built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Coatbridge built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Bugulma fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Dharamshala and Coatbridge have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.