A video by a Mumbai resident highlighting the city’s towering residential blocks has ignited a social media debate on real estate prices, migration, and housing distribution in the city. In the clip, Instagram user Jayantika filmed the ongoing construction around her and noted that “there were easily around a thousand people living in that block alone” and another thousand likely to occupy the new tower under construction.
“The view made me realise how overcrowded Mumbai really is,” she said, while criticising the high cost of urban living: people were “paying crores and crores of rupees for just a hole in the wall.” The video quickly went viral, garnering nearly 23,000 likes.
Backlash quickly followed, with some Instagram users attacking her, accusing her of being a migrant and claiming she had no right to comment on Mumbai’s housing or culture. Responding to the hostility, Jayantika clarified: “Guys, stop telling me to ‘go back’. I’m a Maharashtrian from Mumbai, for god’s sake. This is my ‘back’.”
Some netizens countered her critique, arguing that high real estate prices reflect opportunity rather than just physical space. “You aren’t paying crores for a hole in the wall. You are paying crores to live in a city that gives unparalleled opportunities… If you haven’t secured that opportunity, life will be hell for you,” one user wrote.
Others defended Jayantika, saying her observations reflect Mumbai’s broader economic inequities. Many pointed to property hoarding by wealthy families and corporations, commercial overdevelopment, and inadequate housing circulation as factors driving the city’s affordability crisis. One comment noted: “It is literally crores of rupees for a pocket of air. No land value.”
The discussion also prompted comparisons with life outside metro cities, with users noting the claustrophobic skyline and contrasting it with the freedom of open spaces in smaller towns. The video has thus sparked a wider conversation on urban density, housing distribution, and the socio-economic pressures shaping Mumbai’s real estate landscape.
Source: Money Control
