Balichak 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 Balichak plotted against West Bengal and India. The SNDi of new construction in Balichak rose steadily, 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, Balichak's incremental SNDi rose from 6.36 to 6.45 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Balichak ranked 104th out of 140 cities in West Bengal and 1666th 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?

• Shexian, China
• Unguwar Mahaukci, Nigeria
• Al Dhahir, United Arab Emirates
• Vilhena, Brazil
• Ongniud, China
• Yunxi, China

While Shexian and Vilhena both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, Balichak built increasingly disconnected streets over time in new street additions. For the full network, Balichak and Shexian both became progressively more disconnected, while Vilhena fluctuated in connectivity. Balichak and Vilhena have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.