Dharapuram 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 Dharapuram plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Dharapuram rose steadily, compared to Tamil Nadu which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Dharapuram's incremental SNDi rose from 2.19 to 3.72 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Dharapuram ranked 6th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 156th 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?

• Racine, United States
• 천성로동자구, North Korea
• Banzhuyuan, China
• Mohnapur, India
• Anjangaon, India
• Kecskemét, Hungary

In new street additions, Dharapuram and Racine both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Mohnapur fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Dharapuram and Racine both became progressively more disconnected, while Mohnapur fluctuated in connectivity. Dharapuram and Racine have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.