Wennappuwa 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 Wennappuwa plotted against Puttalam and Sri Lanka. The SNDi of new construction in Wennappuwa was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Puttalam which was at its lowest in 1976-1990 and Sri Lanka which rose steadily. Most recently, Wennappuwa's incremental SNDi rose from 4.76 to 6.88 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Wennappuwa ranked 2nd out of 2 cities in Puttalam and 12th 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?

• Vandeikya Town, Nigeria
• Tiné-Djagaraba, Chad
• Pontinamallayyapalem, India
• Salar, India
• Nimbahera, India
• Bacao, China

While Vandeikya Town and Salar both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, Wennappuwa built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns in new street additions. Looking at the full network, Vandeikya Town and Salar both became progressively more disconnected, while Wennappuwa became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Wennappuwa had a more sprawly network than Salar in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.