Nilambur 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 Nilambur plotted against Kerala and India. The SNDi of new construction in Nilambur rose steadily, 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, Nilambur's incremental SNDi rose from 5.4 to 6.88 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Nilambur ranked 34th out of 48 cities in Kerala and 1607th 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?

• Larissa, Greece
• Ramganj Mandi, India
• Taonan, China
• Bazhou, China
• Pukhrayan, India
• Taldykorgan, Kazakhstan

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