Virudhunagar 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 Virudhunagar plotted against Tamil Nadu and India. The SNDi of new construction in Virudhunagar peaked in 1991-2005, compared to Tamil Nadu which rose steadily and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Virudhunagar's incremental SNDi fell from 5.17 to 4.86 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Virudhunagar ranked 76th out of 121 cities in Tamil Nadu and 1056th 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?

• Xingtai, China
• Damboa, Nigeria
• Kasangulu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Kluang, Malaysia
• Modena, Italy
• Waria, India

While Xingtai and Kluang both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, Virudhunagar built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved in new street additions. For the full network, Virudhunagar and Kluang both became progressively more disconnected, while Xingtai grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Virudhunagar and Xingtai have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.