Surak 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 Surak plotted against Mazandaran and Iran. The SNDi of new construction in Surak was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Mazandaran which rose steadily and Iran which rose steadily. Most recently, Surak's incremental SNDi rose from 5.87 to 6.24 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Surak ranked 3rd out of 9 cities in Mazandaran and 162nd out of 169 in Iran as of 2020.

Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.

What about similarly populated cities?

• Maubin, Myanmar
• Nagapattinam, India
• Pujiang, China
• Myaung Mya, Myanmar
• Koforidua, Ghana
• Xinyi, China

In new street additions, Surak built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Maubin fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Myaung Mya built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full network, Surak became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards, while Maubin became progressively more connected and Myaung Mya became progressively more disconnected. Notably, Surak had a more sprawly network than Myaung Mya in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.