Which is a better place to live: Mumbai or

Bangalore?
Mumbai
1. Autos go by meter. Huge win over BLR. You will be hard pressed to find an auto which
is not following meter.

2. Power. Again no contest. Mumbai has the best power situation in India. In last 8 years, I
have never witnessed load shedding. Even power outages are next to zero as Mumbai has
underground last mile power which shields it from surges. Privatized power companies
(reliance and tata) ensure that power in available 24x7x365. See no fugly power lines!

3. Water. Water quality of Mumbai is best among most cities in India. BMC supplies clean
lake water to all from 7 lakes under their management. Water here is the most soft I have
experienced in all cities I have lived or visited.

4. Waste management. Mumbai has very good waste management. You will generally not
find garbage in residential areas as BMC sends garbage trucks everyday morning and
societies collect garbage from flats and loads into these trucks. Rest of the day garbage is
collected in waste drums and kept for collection. It is true though that some areas have
garbage heaps but you would have really look for them. Moreover, it is at times due to
lack of local management and can be rectified.

5. Trains. No matter how media portrays mumbai locals, they are life line of Mumbai and
are really really fast and convenient. Once you get hang of it (and a first class pass) you
can really feel liberated. And yes it looks like this...mostly.

6. Nightlife. Mumbai has great nightlife. Almost everything is open till 1:30am and there
are places which open all night. You can get it all from booze to food to medicines all
night all over Mumbai. BLR nightlife is, well, meh after 11. AER lounge:

7. Work culture. Mumbai has better work culture than Bangalore as far as I have
experienced. People actually follow queues. Driver, maids and other blue collar workers
here are little more punctual when compared to BLR.

8. BEST. I feel that buses of BEST is far better maintained compared to BMTC buses and
less crowded. I use BEST very regularly and used Bangalore city buses when I was there.
At least, this is what I experienced. Please note, I am not comparing AC buses here. Bus
ride from airport to City was fabulous when I used that. Local city buses were completely
different story.

Digital ticket printing machine with RFID smart cards. Compare this to BMTC I
encountered in BLR:

9. Traffic. BLR traffic is really really bad. Mumbai traffic is bad but not that bad. Roads are
better here. Highways such as Eastern express, freeway, and to some extent western
express ensure that there is fast movement of traffic.

10. Culture and festivals. Kala ghoda festival, mount mary fest and bandra festival are a few
urban road festivals which are pretty good. Apart from that Ganpati utsav, dandiya, new
year, diwali etc are celebrated very well too and can be enjoyed if you are willing.

11. Sea. I love beaches and Mumbai has some beaches and sea fronts. They are not very
clean on weekends. However, there are some great beaches near by areas. You can take
boat and go to nearby places or have a mid sea party. No such luck at BLR :)

12. Sanjay gandhi national park. Mumbai has a 103 sq km national park inside it. It is THE
biggest park inside a any city in the world. Yes, not joking. Just digest that.

13. BKC. Mumbai's central business district, BKC, is really spacious and swanky. There is
nothing like that in BLR.

14. BLR airport is in another town altogether. In Mumbai, we have it bang in the middle of
the city and yes it is swanky.

It is not as if Bangalore is not better on anything. It has better schools, lakes, parks and the
banerghatta zoo is just great. Mumbai byculla zoo is just meh. Bangalore has great weather
which Mumbai severely lacks. Food is better in BLR too.