Rajapalayam 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 Rajapalayam plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Rajapalayam rose steadily, compared to Tamil Nadu which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Rajapalayam's incremental SNDi rose from 5.2 to 5.6 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Rajapalayam ranked 52nd out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 895th 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?

• Ségou, Mali
• Kadipaten, Indonesia
• Sawai Madhopur, India
• Kamarda, India
• Thanlyin, Myanmar
• Netrokona, Bangladesh

In new street additions, Rajapalayam built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Ségou fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Kamarda fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Rajapalayam and Ségou both became progressively more disconnected, while Kamarda became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Rajapalayam and Ségou have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.