Djulu 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 Djulu plotted against Lualaba and Democratic Republic of the Congo. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Djulu's incremental SNDi rose from 2.08 to 2.94 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Djulu ranked 5th out of 11 cities in Lualaba and 61st 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?

• Bariadi, Tanzania
• Gugang, China
• Niono-Socoura, Mali
• Spanish Fork, United States
• Jianhuai, China
• Awlad Seif, Egypt

In new street additions, Djulu fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Bariadi built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Spanish Fork built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Djulu fluctuated in connectivity, while Bariadi became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards and Spanish Fork became progressively more disconnected. Notably, Djulu had a more sprawly network than Spanish Fork in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.