Gbarnga 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 Gbarnga plotted against Bong and Liberia. The SNDi of new construction in Gbarnga rose steadily, compared to Bong which rose steadily and Liberia which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Gbarnga's incremental SNDi rose from 6.19 to 7.51 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Gbarnga ranked 1st out of 1 cities in Bong and 5th out of 9 in Liberia as of 2020.

Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.

What about similarly populated cities?

• Chandipur, India
• Hajja, Yemen
• Qaryat Salah al Din, Egypt
• Ariquemes, Brazil
• Serov, Russia
• Grand-Bassam, Côte d'Ivoire

In new street additions, Gbarnga built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Chandipur built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Ariquemes built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then improved. For the full network, Gbarnga and Ariquemes both became progressively more disconnected, while Chandipur became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Gbarnga and Chandipur have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.