Kuthalam 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 Kuthalam plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Kuthalam was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Tamil Nadu which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Kuthalam's incremental SNDi rose from 4.3 to 6.18 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Kuthalam ranked 107th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 1420th 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?

• Hinche, Haiti
• Belovo, Russia
• Zuoquan, China
• Barra do Garças, Brazil
• Patran, India
• Bhadra, India

In new street additions, Kuthalam built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Hinche fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Barra do Garças built increasingly disconnected streets over time. Looking at the full network, Hinche and Barra do Garças both became progressively more disconnected, while Kuthalam became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Kuthalam and Hinche have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.