Mulongo 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 Mulongo plotted against Haut-Lomami and Democratic Republic of the Congo. The SNDi of new construction in Mulongo rose steadily, compared to Haut-Lomami which rose steadily and Democratic Republic of the Congo which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Mulongo's incremental SNDi rose from 2.56 to 4.51 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Mulongo ranked 10th out of 17 cities in Haut-Lomami and 62nd 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?

• Jalingo, Nigeria
• Texcoco de Mora, México
• Hinthada, Myanmar
• Chuncheon, South Korea
• Qingyang, China
• Hami, China

In new street additions, Mulongo and Chuncheon both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Jalingo fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Mulongo and Chuncheon have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.