Beni 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 Beni plotted against Nord-Kivu and Democratic Republic of the Congo. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Beni's incremental SNDi rose from 2.65 to 3.51 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Beni ranked 5th out of 16 cities in Nord-Kivu and 66th 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?

• Jilin City, China
• Cirebon, Indonesia
• Xuzhou, China
• Datong, China
• Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, India
• Asuncion, Paraguay

In new street additions, Beni fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Jilin City built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Datong built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Beni and Jilin City both became progressively more disconnected, while Datong grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. Notably, Beni had a more connected network than Jilin City in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.