As per a study, Gurugram is a more suitable city to live in from a Covid perspective as compared to Mumbai and Bengaluru. "We believe that factors such as population density, open area ratio and hospital infrastructure are of far greater importance than distance from work or affordability of a flat in the current scenario,’’ the Square Yards COVID Suitability Index Report said.The report uses these factors and the Covid status in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurugram to rank them on the basis of liveability, which in turn would help an end-user make an informed decision on where to live.
The East zone in Gurugram, the Western and Central suburbs in Mumbai (wards N and PN) and the Mahadevapura zone in Bengaluru were found to be the most suitable to live in from a Covid perspective.
The pandemic exposed the shortcomings in medical infrastructure like never before. Both Mumbai and Bengaluru were poorly placed in this regard with just 1.3 and 0.30 Covid hospitals available, respectively, per 10,000 people. Gurugram outshone both with 2.5 hospitals per 10,000 people, as per the report.
Contrary to the common notion, the report suggests that Mumbai has the highest open area ratio among the three cities at nearly 45 per cent. Mumbai is also the most densely populated with nearly 60,000 people/sq km, while Gurugram has the lowest population density at approximately 4,200 people/sq km.
The Covid-suitability heat map for each city suggests that suitability increased as people moved away from the city centres and older parts of the city towards more peripheral locations.
Not only are these cities the top real estate destinations in the country, but they are also among the top cities to be severely hit by the pandemic. This is where the relevance of a Suitability Index kicks in. The need for one's own ‘home' has gained an all-new dimension since 2020 due to the changes brought about by the pandemic. The study is an attempt at making the home-buying process in the Covid era slightly more pragmatic.
It highlights certain meaningful factors that today's end users need to acknowledge while deciding to buy the right home in a pandemic like situation.
These include factors such as population density, open area ratio and availability of hospital infrastructure which could be far more important today than the distance from work or affordability.
