Melur 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 Melur plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Melur rose steadily, compared to Tamil Nadu which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Melur's incremental SNDi rose from 4.42 to 4.94 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Melur ranked 86th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 1131st 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?

• Titabor, India
• Özgön, Kyrgyzstan
• Gauriganj, India
• Rongshui, China
• Shoranur, India
• Nayagarh, India

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