TITLE:
Road Network and Urban Development: A Comparative Analysis of Bungoma and Kerugoya Municipalities in Kenya
AUTHORS:
Alfred Eshitera, Lawrence Esho, Casty Gataaka Njoroge
KEYWORDS:
Road Network, Urban Development, Normalized Difference Built-Up Index (NDBI), Kenya
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Service Science and Management,
Vol.17 No.4,
August
23,
2024
ABSTRACT: Road network expansion and urban development have attracted scholars in the fields of regional and urban studies. The attraction has been necessitated by the rate at which the urban population is increasing, due to natural growth and migration. Governments in both developed and developing countries allocate a lot of funds to urban infrastructure, especially the roads sector, with the aim of promoting the smooth flow of goods and services within urban areas. This high investment has attracted scholars in various fields, including regional economists and infrastructure planning experts, aiming to establish the relationship between road infrastructure networks and development. Mostly, studies done in urban areas are related to road infrastructure expansion in relation to land cover changes. In this study, a different exploratory route was taken, with the main purpose of comparing the road network distribution in relation to the actual spatial distribution of the urban landscape. In this context, the urban built-up areas were selected as a key indicator relating to road network distribution and physical urban development. The Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) was used to estimate the spatial distribution of urban physical growth. Other indicators of urban growth studied include utility distribution, land values, and investment attractiveness. From this study, it is clear that areas with high network connectivity have the highest values of NDBI and land values, together with the concentration of electricity distribution transformers per km2, which is a sign of a high growth rate. Kerugoya municipality emerged as the urban area with the highest road connectivity index of 77.42%, while Bungoma had 22.22%. Kerugoya has complete road network circuits of 24 compared to Bungoma’s 6. Similarly, Kerugoya recorded the highest figures of land values and NDBI indicating high concentration of road network attracts developers. The study results can be used by policymakers to establish priority areas for road network investment.