Batticaloa 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 Batticaloa plotted against Sri Lanka. The SNDi of new construction in Batticaloa followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, while Sri Lanka rose steadily. Most recently, Batticaloa's incremental SNDi rose from 3.3 to 4.88 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Batticaloa ranked 4th out of 21 in Sri Lanka as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Amalapuram, India
• Sangrur, India
• Dutsin Ma, Nigeria
• Yakeshi/Yaysi, China
• Wollongong, Australia
• Tongnan, China

In new street additions, Batticaloa fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Amalapuram built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Yakeshi/Yaysi built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Batticaloa became progressively more disconnected, while Amalapuram became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards and Yakeshi/Yaysi grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Batticaloa and Amalapuram have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.