Mal Bazaar 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 Mal Bazaar plotted against West Bengal and India. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Mal Bazaar's incremental SNDi rose from 3.43 to 4.69 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Mal Bazaar ranked 39th out of 140 cities in West Bengal and 999th 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?

• Bandar-e Anzali, Iran
• Wangcheng, China
• Yishan, China
• Guzhen, China
• Kachise, Ethiopia
• Maharakul, India

In new street additions, Mal Bazaar fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Bandar-e Anzali built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Guzhen built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Mal Bazaar fluctuated in connectivity, while Bandar-e Anzali became progressively more disconnected and Guzhen grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Notably, Mal Bazaar had a more connected network than Bandar-e Anzali in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.