Bosaso 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 Bosaso plotted against Bari and Somalia. While Bari and Somalia both followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, Bosaso's new street additions followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Bosaso's incremental SNDi rose from 1.78 to 1.95 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Bosaso ranked 2nd out of 2 cities in Bari and 28th out of 39 in Somalia as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Jiangyan, China
• Haeju, North Korea
• Gulou, China
• Pinghu, China
• Nanchuan, China
• Acheng, China

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