Story
May 20, 2026
As Mumbai’s Coastal Garden Hatches, Listening—and Dialogue—Are Key
Country:
Polluted air and harsher weather are challenging the livability of Mumbai. Citizens want an upcoming...
Mumbai continues to change, and what its people say about it matters.
Mumbai to me is a city of perpetual motion and ambition. And this city has felt different every time I’ve been there. As a child visiting with my parents, as a young adult exploring the city, and as an early-career journalist reporting in it.
The city’s coastal garden and the road that came before it were developed through contentious land reclamation. I understand the options that land reclamation provides for development, and its role in a city like Mumbai. Reclamation has sculpted the city we know today from what was once seven islands along the Arabian Sea. And so, when I began reporting during the monsoon of 2025, I had one question: What is different about this reclamation and what now?
I found multiple answers. The most compelling one was the reality.
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As someone who briefly had the ringside perspective, I have witnessed the awareness and momentum around the coastal garden shift. I have seen it expressed as a fait accompli of private development and also as a great possibility of public infrastructure in the aftermath of reclamation. And that duality still holds.
This story is not about the reclamation as much as the possibilities in the wake of it. And those possibilities can be explored only when there are spaces for dialogue.
I hope this story contributes to that dialogue as a record of land use, of how land in Mumbai continues to change, and what its people have to say about it.
I hope readers take away the scale of this plan, the history of the land, the reality of climate change in a city as singular as Mumbai, and the contribution of all the players involved. And I knew I wanted to reflect all of this in roughly 2,000 words. Evidently, Mumbai’s ambition has rubbed off on me.
And much like Mumbai, the coastal garden is still very much in motion. It is a concurrent issue that can benefit from more conversations, especially those around participative and climate-resilient public infrastructure.
