James Town 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 James Town plotted against Akwa Ibom and Nigeria. While Akwa Ibom and Nigeria both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, James Town's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, James Town's incremental SNDi rose from 8.73 to 8.81 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, James Town ranked 15th out of 16 cities in Akwa Ibom and 413th out of 422 in Nigeria as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Aghjabadi, Azerbaijan
• Dachen town, China
• Kamonia, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Sela Kui, India
• Abaji, Nigeria
• Chawinda, Pakistan

While Aghjabadi and Sela Kui both built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, James Town fluctuated in its street-construction patterns in new street additions. Looking at the full network, Aghjabadi and Sela Kui both became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards, while James Town became progressively more disconnected. James Town and Aghjabadi have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.