Bulungu 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 Bulungu plotted against Kwilu and Democratic Republic of the Congo. While Kwilu and Democratic Republic of the Congo both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, Bulungu's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Bulungu's incremental SNDi rose from 2.18 to 4.17 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Bulungu ranked 4th out of 7 cities in Kwilu and 37th 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?

• Lake in the Hills, United States
• Tonghe, China
• Belfort, France
• Midu, China
• Wukro, Ethiopia
• Shikrapur, India

While Lake in the Hills and Midu both built increasingly disconnected streets over time, Bulungu fluctuated in its street-construction patterns in new street additions. For the full street network, though, all three cities follow the same trend. Notably, Bulungu had a more sprawly network than Midu in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.