Karaikal 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 Karaikal plotted against Puducherry and India. The SNDi of new construction in Karaikal followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, compared to Puducherry which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Karaikal's incremental SNDi fell from 7.39 to 6.96 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Karaikal ranked 3rd out of 3 cities in Puducherry and 1774th 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?

• Mamuju, Indonesia
• Tarzoho, Nigeria
• Lira, Uganda
• Basantpur, India
• Liangping, China
• Zhujing, China

In new street additions, Karaikal fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Mamuju built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Basantpur built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Karaikal and Basantpur both became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards, while Mamuju became progressively more disconnected. Karaikal and Basantpur have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.