Lwishia 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 Lwishia 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, Lwishia's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Lwishia's incremental SNDi rose from 1.31 to 1.95 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lwishia ranked 8th out of 17 cities in Haut-Katanga and 23rd 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?

• Bute Town, Kenya
• Sakania, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Haylan, Syria
• Panguila, Angola
• Masalani, Kenya
• Lumeje, Angola

In new street additions, Lwishia fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Bute Town built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Panguila built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Lwishia fluctuated in connectivity, while Bute Town grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved and Panguila became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Lwishia had a more connected network than Panguila in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.