Pala 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 Pala plotted against Kerala and India. The SNDi of new construction in Pala 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, Pala's incremental SNDi rose from 3.81 to 4.62 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Pala ranked 1st out of 48 cities in Kerala and 865th 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?

• Sindagi, India
• Umm Kaddada, Sudan
• Kadayanallur, India
• Kosan, North Korea
• Kafr al Hajj Shirbini, Egypt
• Lecce, Italy

In new street additions, Pala built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Sindagi built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Kosan built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Pala became progressively more disconnected, while Sindagi became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards and Kosan grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Pala and Sindagi have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.