Kovilpatti 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 Kovilpatti plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Kovilpatti peaked in 1991-2005, compared to Tamil Nadu which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Kovilpatti's incremental SNDi fell from 4.33 to 3.75 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Kovilpatti ranked 78th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 1065th 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?

• La Ceiba, Honduras
• Meili, China
• Govardhan, India
• Ternate, Indonesia
• Bandikui, India
• Rehovot, Israel

While La Ceiba and Ternate both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, Kovilpatti built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved in new street additions. Looking at the full network, La Ceiba and Ternate both became progressively more disconnected, while Kovilpatti grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Kovilpatti and La Ceiba have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.