Lalgola 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 Lalgola plotted against West Bengal and India. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Lalgola's incremental SNDi rose from 4.21 to 6.61 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lalgola ranked 55th out of 140 cities in West Bengal and 1221st 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?

• Lingyuan, China
• Shulan, China
• Changshou, China
• Magura, Bangladesh
• Chalisgaon, India
• Kimch'aek, North Korea

In new street additions, Lalgola fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Lingyuan built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Magura built increasingly disconnected streets over time. Looking at the full network, Lingyuan and Magura both became progressively more disconnected, while Lalgola fluctuated in connectivity. Notably, Lalgola had a more sprawly network than Magura in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.