Kasumbalesa 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 Kasumbalesa plotted against Haut-Katanga and Democratic Republic of the Congo. While Haut-Katanga and Democratic Republic of the Congo both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, Kasumbalesa's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Kasumbalesa's incremental SNDi rose from 1.82 to 2.25 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Kasumbalesa ranked 9th out of 17 cities in Haut-Katanga and 34th out of 186 in Democratic Republic of the Congo as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Guanghan, China
• Riohacha, Colombia
• Metallurgicheskiy District, Russia
• Chitrakoot Dham, India
• Sullana, Peru
• Mancherial, India

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