Beldanga 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 Beldanga plotted against West Bengal and India. The SNDi of new construction in Beldanga 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, Beldanga's incremental SNDi rose from 6.71 to 8.89 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Beldanga ranked 103rd out of 140 cities in West Bengal and 1660th 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?

• Wonju, South Korea
• Nzérékoré, Guinea
• Buraydah, Saudi Arabia
• Jimma, Ethiopia
• Bahawalnagar, Pakistan
• Meihekou, China

In new street additions, Beldanga built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Wonju fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Jimma built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Beldanga and Wonju both became progressively more disconnected, while Jimma became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards.