Manapparai 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 Manapparai plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Manapparai 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, Manapparai's incremental SNDi fell from 3.73 to 2.42 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Manapparai ranked 10th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 275th 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?

• Fenyi, China
• Musan, North Korea
• Wuxing, China
• Dir, Pakistan
• Mishan, China
• Cangxi County, China

In new street additions, Manapparai built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Fenyi built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Dir built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full network, Manapparai grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved, while Fenyi became progressively more connected and Dir became progressively more disconnected. Manapparai and Fenyi have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.