Papanasam 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 Papanasam plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Papanasam 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, Papanasam's incremental SNDi rose from 6.28 to 7.4 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Papanasam ranked 118th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 1749th 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?

• St. Gallen, Switzerland
• Ganta, Liberia
• Al-Midaina, Iraq
• Pokrovsk, Ukraine
• Shinkafi, Nigeria
• Serra, Brazil

In new street additions, Papanasam built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while St. Gallen built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Pokrovsk built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Looking at the full network, St. Gallen and Pokrovsk both became progressively more disconnected, while Papanasam became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Papanasam and St. Gallen have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.