Wum 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 Wum plotted against Nord-Ouest and Cameroon. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Wum's incremental SNDi rose from 6.93 to 7.07 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Wum ranked 4th out of 4 cities in Nord-Ouest and 43rd out of 44 in Cameroon as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Guantao, China
• Fnideq, Morocco
• Kandangan, Indonesia
• Payas, Turkey
• Shunufa, Egypt
• Villa de Cura, Venezuela

In new street additions, Wum built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Guantao fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Payas built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Wum became progressively more disconnected, while Guantao fluctuated in connectivity and Payas became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Wum and Payas have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.