Why Mumbai is not the future city. Review on Mumbai

I wrote a review on Bangalore some time back. The review was very optimistic and claimed everything is going right. Today I may not say the same about my city. The infrastructure is crumbling. The government is decaying in the (invisible) hands of Deve Gowda. But still, I wouldn?t dare to come and live in Mumbai.

For a person from another city (even another country), landing in Bombay is shocking. First of all the scale of things are huge. Huge number of people, large number of outdated taxis and autorikshaws, crowded streets etc. The traffic jam that I was involved was as big as 3 km long.

Symptoms apart, Bombay is overcrowded and suffocating, sometimes may be intolerable to an outsider. One of the foreign national told me that he wanted to get out of the city as soon as possible because he was scared of dying in a stampede somewhere.

Taxi are of Neanderthal technology from the yore, for which you will end up coughing up as much as you might for a sophisticated taxi (Tata Indica or Maruthi Omni) in Bangalore. Bangalore doesn?t have even traces of the fiat cars that are used as taxis in Bombay and very few but well maintained Ambassadors. People are generally friendly but get too friendly too soon (in my experience) which is uncomfortable. I donot intend to discuss about the largest slum in the world out here.

Even though Bangalore airport is congested, you will hear security folks wishing you a happy journey after the security check and in general a good experience. No such pleasantries to expect in Bombay. The airports are pathetic. The experience is hopeless.

I guess the old age economy, which has grown, as a mammoth over the city cannot reinvent itself in time. That?s exactly the reason why Bombay is not the city of the future. The governments will not support the new age cities like Bangalore/Pune to grow up to international standards.