Kolar Gold Fields 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 Kolar Gold Fields plotted against Karnataka and India. The SNDi of new construction in Kolar Gold Fields was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Karnataka which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Kolar Gold Fields's incremental SNDi rose from 2.54 to 3.53 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Kolar Gold Fields ranked 27th out of 96 cities in Karnataka and 335th 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?

• Salinas, United States
• Kremenchuk, Ukraine
• South Valley, United States
• Qiyang, China
• Baniachong, Bangladesh
• Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Brazil

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