Mardan 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 Mardan plotted against Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistan. The SNDi of new construction in Mardan was at its lowest in 1991-2005, compared to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and Pakistan which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Mardan's incremental SNDi rose from 4.42 to 5.06 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Mardan ranked 22nd out of 67 cities in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and 205th out of 292 in Pakistan as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Sargodha, Pakistan
• Warri, Nigeria
• Dushanbe, Tajikistan
• Tiruppur, India
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Kigali, Rwanda

While Sargodha and Tiruppur both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, Mardan built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns in new street additions. Looking at the full network, Sargodha and Tiruppur both became progressively more disconnected, while Mardan became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Mardan and Tiruppur have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.