Mbale City 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 Mbale City plotted against Mbale and Uganda. The SNDi of new construction in Mbale City followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase, compared to Mbale which was at its lowest in 1976-1990 and Uganda which was at its lowest in 1976-1990. Most recently, Mbale City's incremental SNDi rose from 3.69 to 5.63 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Mbale City ranked 1st out of 2 cities in Mbale and 18th out of 25 in Uganda as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Sivakasi, India
• Đông Anh, Vietnam
• Pelotas, Brazil
• Emeishan, China
• Menongue, Angola
• Quy Nhơn, Vietnam

In new street additions, Mbale City fluctuated in its street-construction patterns, while Sivakasi built increasingly disconnected streets over time and Emeishan built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. For the full network, Mbale City and Sivakasi both became progressively more disconnected, while Emeishan grew more disconnected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved. Mbale City and Sivakasi have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.