Kandhar 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 Kandhar plotted against Maharashtra and India. The SNDi of new construction in Kandhar rose steadily, compared to Maharashtra which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Kandhar's incremental SNDi rose from 4.51 to 5.48 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Kandhar ranked 123rd out of 157 cities in Maharashtra and 1043rd 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?

• Fengkai, China
• Beloretsk, Russia
• Viedma, Argentina
• Bruges, Belgium
• Prachin Buri, Thailand
• Jaora, India

In new street additions, Kandhar built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Fengkai built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Bruges built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Kandhar and Bruges both became progressively more disconnected, while Fengkai became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Kandhar had a more connected network than Fengkai in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.