Kumba 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 Kumba plotted against Sud-Ouest and Cameroon. While Sud-Ouest and Cameroon both rose steadily, Kumba's new street additions rose steadily. Most recently, Kumba's incremental SNDi rose from 4.88 to 5.08 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Kumba ranked 4th out of 5 cities in Sud-Ouest and 30th 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?

• Liuyang, China
• Sanming, China
• Baoying, China
• Manta, Ecuador
• Vitória da Conquista, Brazil
• Hezhou, China

In new street additions, Kumba built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Liuyang built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Manta fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Kumba and Manta both became progressively more disconnected, while Liuyang grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Kumba and Liuyang have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.