Kattappana 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 Kattappana plotted against Kerala and India. The SNDi of new construction in Kattappana was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Kerala which was at its lowest in 1976-1990 and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Kattappana's incremental SNDi rose from 4.66 to 5.63 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Kattappana ranked 30th out of 48 cities in Kerala and 1583rd 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?

• Flores, Guatemala
• Saktipur, India
• Farah, Afghanistan
• Kuhdasht, Iran
• Hongtong, China
• Kusong, North Korea

In new street additions, Kattappana built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Flores fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Kuhdasht built increasingly disconnected streets over time. Looking at the full network, Flores and Kuhdasht both became progressively more disconnected, while Kattappana became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards.