Ghatal 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 Ghatal plotted against West Bengal and India. The SNDi of new construction in Ghatal was at its lowest 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, Ghatal's incremental SNDi rose from 14.55 to 14.79 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Ghatal ranked 138th out of 140 cities in West Bengal and 1853rd 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?

• Ngawi, Indonesia
• Cumbaya, Ecuador
• Leeuwarden, Netherlands
• Anié, Togo
• La Spezia, Italy
• Zongyang, China

While Ngawi and Anié both fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, Ghatal built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns in new street additions. For the full network, Ghatal and Ngawi both became progressively more disconnected, while Anié fluctuated in connectivity. Notably, Ghatal had a more connected network than Anié in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.