Balagarh 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 Balagarh plotted against West Bengal and India. The SNDi of new construction in Balagarh peaked in 1976-1990, compared to West Bengal which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and India which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Balagarh's incremental SNDi fell from 6.24 to 5.63 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Balagarh ranked 111th out of 140 cities in West Bengal and 1719th 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?

• Târgu Jiu, Romania
• São Mateus, Brazil
• Labuha, Indonesia
• Pabianice, Poland
• Sabirabad, Azerbaijan
• Dogari Tiv, Nigeria

While Târgu Jiu and Pabianice both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, Balagarh built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved in new street additions. Looking at the full network, Târgu Jiu and Pabianice both became progressively more disconnected, while Balagarh grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved.