Okara Cantonment 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 Okara Cantonment plotted against Punjab and Pakistan. The SNDi of new construction in Okara Cantonment followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, compared to Punjab which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase and Pakistan which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Okara Cantonment's incremental SNDi fell from 3.25 to 2.97 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Okara Cantonment ranked 8th out of 146 cities in Punjab and 18th 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?

• Dejiang, China
• Hoorn, Netherlands
• East Kilbride, United Kingdom
• Akatsi, Ghana
• Shizong, China
• Sig, Algeria

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