Chengam 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 Chengam plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. While Tamil Nadu and India both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, Chengam's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Chengam's incremental SNDi rose from 3.39 to 4.17 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Chengam ranked 50th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 858th 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?

• B. Parque dos Faróis, Brazil
• Betnoti, India
• Barhampur, India
• Yingjing, China
• Kladno, Czechia
• Chakia, India

In new street additions, Chengam and B. Parque dos Faróis both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Yingjing built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Chengam fluctuated in connectivity, while B. Parque dos Faróis became progressively more disconnected and Yingjing grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Notably, Chengam had a more sprawly network than Yingjing in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.