Thuraiyur 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 Thuraiyur plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Thuraiyur rose steadily, compared to Tamil Nadu which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Thuraiyur's incremental SNDi rose from 3.52 to 6.84 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Thuraiyur ranked 20th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 483rd 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?

• Avellino, Italy
• Anchal, India
• Zhongyang, China
• Rudbar, Iran
• Busia, Uganda
• Planaltina, Brazil

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