Mayiladuthurai 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 Mayiladuthurai plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Mayiladuthurai was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Tamil Nadu which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Mayiladuthurai's incremental SNDi rose from 3.56 to 4.75 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Mayiladuthurai ranked 74th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 1034th 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?

• Northampton, United Kingdom
• Jiayuguan, China
• Conghua, China
• Laixi, China
• Saint-Louis, Senegal
• Dezful, Iran

In new street additions, Mayiladuthurai built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Northampton built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Laixi fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Mayiladuthurai became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards, while Northampton grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Laixi grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Notably, Mayiladuthurai had a more sprawly network than Northampton in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.