Solan 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 Solan plotted against Himachal Pradesh and India. The SNDi of new construction in Solan 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, Solan's incremental SNDi rose from 7.26 to 7.84 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Solan ranked 5th out of 6 cities in Himachal Pradesh and 1731st 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?

• Shahapura, India
• Ergani, Turkey
• Xiongyue, China
• Nanzhao, China
• Melka Chireti, Ethiopia
• Katol, India

In new street additions, Solan built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Shahapura built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Nanzhao fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Solan and Nanzhao both became progressively more disconnected, while Shahapura became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Notably, Solan had a more connected network than Shahapura in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.