Lahar 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 Lahar plotted against Madhya Pradesh and India. The SNDi of new construction in Lahar was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Madhya Pradesh which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Lahar's incremental SNDi rose from 6.17 to 6.36 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lahar ranked 88th out of 98 cities in Madhya Pradesh and 1667th 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?

• Luling, China
• El Zorro, Venezuela
• Thiruvaiyaru, India
• Collado Villalba, Spain
• Manakara, Madagascar
• Alfenas, Brazil

In new street additions, Lahar built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Luling fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Collado Villalba built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Notably, Lahar had a more connected network than Luling in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.